


Priorities

by JLMonroe1234



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Tony Stark, Iron Man 1, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Peter is already 15 when Tony's in the cave, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony sees Peter directly after the spider bite, not based on the MCU timeline
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2020-01-23 05:02:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18542812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JLMonroe1234/pseuds/JLMonroe1234
Summary: Tony had been in the cave for a month. Waiting. Planning. Healing. Biding his time until his creation would be ready and durable enough to get him home. With Yinsen's help and Tony's expertise, he would save them both.But when an injured teenager is brought into the mix, Tony must reevaluate his priorities and decide what's more important; a speedy escape, or rescuing the boy with the spider tattoo?





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to comment! I’d love to hear your opinions!
> 
>  
> 
> PLEASE NOTE: This work is an original by JLMonroe1234 and has been posted STRICTLY to AO3. If you see it duplicated on any other platforms, please let me know so appropriate action can be taken. Thank you!

Tony hadn't slept properly in almost a month.

 Determining the exact cause was difficult, if not impossible. Maybe it was the rusty, creaky cot he laid down on every night. Maybe it was the combination of dust and moisture in the air, making deep breathing uncomfortable and his throat endlessly scratchy. Maybe it was the occasional bouts of gunfire or assorted explosions that rang out at all hours of the day.

Maybe it was the screaming. The endless screaming.

As ironic as it sounded, Tony had no idea how he'd gotten so lucky. He was alive, fed (not excessively, but enough to keep that "alive" title), and _not alone._ That was where the "lucky" part came in. For the entirety of his incarceration, a deathly smart but surprisingly personable man named Ho Yinsen had been keeping him company. Any comfort the man provided to Tony was most likely unintentional; after all, Yinsen himself was also stuck in the cave against his will. Them being roomed together was due purely to chance. But one thing was undeniable: Stark absolutely did not mind having him around.

Yinsen made things a little easier when the screaming would get especially loud.

"Do not assume the worst," he'd say. "Besides, at least it isn't you."

No, it wasn't Tony. But it felt that way, sometimes, when the shouts would echo off the cave walls, bounce off the metal doors of their containment room and reverberate through Tony's ribs. Shake him to his core. Remind him that it _was_ him for a while, right after the magnet had been put in his chest. He didn't remember much, but the small chunks of memory he could drudge up were clouded with a red haze, tainted with pain. He'd shouted for a while after the fact. Yelling was the only thing he could do without being blinded by pain. He wondered if Yinsen had still kept the "at least it's not you" mindset during that time.

This time, the screams were particularly loud. It was the third time that night Stark had been stirred out of a deep sleep because of them.

"They must be getting creative," Yinsen said drowsily, shifting around on his own cot. "I pity the soul currently in their grasp."

"I thought we weren't supposed to assume the worst." Tony was sitting up now, realizing there was no possible way for him to doze off again.

"They've been at it for hours now. I think, this time, the worst is _really_ the worst."

Another shout sounded from somewhere in the cave.

"Tell you what, Yinsen. Maybe you should go knock on the neighbor's door, tell them to keep the noise down. They're scaring the kids."

Yinsen chuckled behind the cup of water he'd poured from a nearby canteen. "Shall I ask them for a cup of sugar while I'm at it?"

"Yes, darling. That would be great. We ran out weeks ago, and I haven't been able to make my famous tea."

"What a shame."

"Truly."

With a stretch and a grunt, Tony stood from his cot and made his way to the door. He'd found a way to maneuver the rectangular peephole open ages ago and used that skill to look into the hallway. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary. The lights were on but dimmed for the evening, most likely to give the rebels working within some sense of day and night. Without them, Tony would have no idea what time it really was. The lights in his and Yinsen's room remained on at all hours. It had really done a number on him the first few nights after his arrival, throwing his internal time table for a loop.

"I don't see anything."

"Of course you don't, they wouldn't be so foolish as to-"

"Hold on." Tony held a hand up, signaling for Yinsen's silence. "Listen. It stopped."

Yinsen tilted his head toward the ceiling, eyes skimming the cave as if he'd be able to see the source of the previous noise. "You're right. They must be done for the night. Great news, for his sake and ours.” 

Tony turned from the door. "His?"

"I have yet to hear the distress calls of a woman. I think they are saved for," Yinsen swallowed, " _alternate_ activities."

"God, this place is fucked."

"I'm sure we don't even know the half of it."

Through the still-open peephole, Tony heard movement in the hallway beyond. Two men were speaking in a language Tony didn't understand. Their voices were frantic, frustrated.

"Yinsen. Up and at 'em. I need that beautiful brain of yours."

"You hear something?"

"Neighbors brought the fight outside."

Yinsen took up a place next to Tony, ear aimed toward the door's opening. His brows were furrowed, eyes squinted in concentration. "Hungarian. It's always Hungarian. Give me a moment."

Yinsen had been Tony's main source of communication between himself and the rebels thanks to his arsenal of linguistic knowledge. It made Tony wish he'd taken language classes in high school. He knew some French here and there, a little bit of Russian. Nothing close to what he needed to understand these people. He would have to work on that when he got home.

He wasn't staying in this damn cave forever. He would get home. He would.

"I can't totally understand them, but I think they're saying something about transport."

"Transport? Are they moving us?"

"No, not us. Spider. They keep saying spider, I'm not sure why."

The rebels' conversation intensified, voices rising. Tony saw movement at the end of the hall. "I think they're coming down here. Move it, Yin. Get back." He slid the peephole plate closed and both men quickly returned to their cots, hurriedly covering themselves with their flimsy blankets and feigning sleep.

The metal door was thrown open and several men walked in, apparently in the middle of a fight. All were speaking loudly an using wild hand gestures. Yinsen and Tony sat up in their beds, pretending to be shocked by the sudden intrusion of the rebels.

There were four of them, two standing back as the other two wheeled something into the room between them. To Tony's utter shock and horror he realized it was a _person,_ slumped over, a dark sack over their head and almost certainly out cold if their lack of movement said anything.

"What's this about? You know I get grumpy when I'm woken prematurely. Tell them, Yinsen. I agitate easily."

The men left the wheelchair in the middle of the room, its occupant not moving as the rebels left. One stopped, hand on the door way. He was smirking. He said something Tony didn't catch and exited with his comrades, the door banging shut behind him.

"You catch that?"

Yinsen's eyes were trained on the person in the chair, wide with surprise and curiosity. "Not totally. But I got the gist. _New roommate."_

* * *

 

"New roommate? Since when?"

Yinsen shrugged. He'd been walking around around the person for several seconds, surveying before engaging. "You are the only other captive I've encountered during my time here."

"Well," Tony made his way over to the wheelchair, grasping the hood over the man's head and gathering the excess fabric in his fist, "I guess we should introduce ourselves."

And with an unceremonious ripping off of the hood, the newcomer was exposed.

_"Shit."_

Sitting in the chair, brown hair ruffled and chin resting on his chest, was a _child._

Yinsen didn't seem to mind the cave floor digging into his knees as he bent down to study the boy's face. "He can't be over, I don't know, sixteen? Maybe younger?"

"Why is he here? Where did he come from?" The kid was in a blue jacket and jeans, both worn and dirty with holes scattered throughout. His shirt may have been white at one time, some sort of faded red lettering plastered across his chest. They were civilian clothes, probably the ones he was taken in. 

Tony didn't see the blood at first. It was caked onto the edges of his t-shirt, lined part of the jacket's hood. He grabbed the jacket and started peeling it off at the neck, cringing as it tore away from patches of dried blood.

"Huh. Yinsen, get over here buddy. Look at this."

Sitting on the nape of the kid's neck, still red from it's previous application, was a small tattoo of what could only be identified as as black widow.

"I think we found our spider."

* * *

For the next several hours, Yinsen examined the boy. Checking vitals, cleaning wounds (to the best of his abilities). He wasn't seriously hurt at the moment, but there was plenty of evidence of prior injuries. At the moment it was mostly bruises and superficial cuts. The dried blood Tony had seen earlier was old, probably from something that had already healed over. 

"His vitals are all over the place." Yinsen slid his glasses onto his forehead, ferociously rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. "I took his heart rate two hours ago and it was perfectly normal. I took it again an hour ago and it was dangerously low. Now he's in severe tachycardia. I have no idea why it's fluctuating so quickly."

"Is he sick?" He definitely looked the part; dark, seemingly permanent circles under his eyes paired with a fine sheen of sweat coating his face gave him the appearance of someone at the end of their rope.

"I won't really know until he wakes up. Not all illness symptoms are external. I'll need him to tell me what he's feeling."

Before either of them could react, the boy's eyes flew open, he turned his head, and promptly vomited on the floor.

"I think he's up," Tony pointed out.

"Hello, it's okay, alright, okay. Yes, you're alright." Yinsen's immediate switch from clinical observer to parental figure was almost startling. He'd been all stats mere seconds ago. Now, he had a steady hand on the boy's shoulder and was guiding him through his next bout of heaving.

Once he'd wretched up everything possible, the boy leaned back in his seat. His head lulled backward, eyes remaining closed as he took deep breaths.

"Are you alright?" Yinsen asked, the doctor's hand on the boy's forehead. "You're burning up."

The kid nodded, then winced. Tony could only assume all of the puking induced a nasty headache.

"What is your name, son?"

There was silence for several seconds. The kid swallowed thickly. "P-Peter."

"Very nice to meet you, Peter. I need you to tell me how you are feeling."

"Where are we?" Peter asked. "I-I want to go home."

Peter's tone of voice broke something in Tony. He sounded so unbelievably _scared._ This kid didn't belong here. He should be in school, or hanging out with friends, or finding his first girlfriend. Not being held in a cave in the Middle East, ridiculously far from his family.

Tony slapped the kid's back, maybe a bit rougher than he'd meant to. Peter grunted. "I know you do, kiddo. We all do. But right now, we gotta get you right."

"Y-yea. I don't feel so good."

"Tell me what is bothering you." Yinsen extended his hand to Peter, evidently with the intention of helping him out of the wheelchair. Peter flinched so hard that the chair rolled backward several feet.

"Whoa, okay. I didn't mean to startle you."

"Sorry. I'm sorry. It's just.."

The smile Yinsen offered him was grim, but understanding. "A little jumpy right now. That's okay. But really, why don't we get you to a cot, hm? Much more comfortable than that chair."

"Yes, sir."

"Yinsen. You can call me Yinsen. And that's Tony Stark."

Something in Peter's demeanor changed. His look of discomfort was replaced with one of wonder. "N-no, wait. S-Seriously? _The_ Tony Stark? Wow, it's an honor to meet you, Mr.Stark. And you too, Mr.Yinsen, but Mr.Stark. _Wow."_

A gentle hand between Peter's shoulder blades lead him to Yinsen's own cot. The kid was still babbling once he got there, so much so that he didn't protest as he was pushed down by his shoulder onto his back. Tony didn't know if Peter's frantic words were a result of his personality or his obvious fever. Maybe both.

"Your heart rate is a little too fast for my liking, Peter."

The front of the boy's shirt was soaked in sweat. "Yea, yea, I feel that, yea. It hurt's pretty bad, Mr.Yinsen."

"What hurts? Your chest?"

"No, my hand. Oh man, it _really hurts."_

Peter's right hand was wrapped around his left wrist, his eyes trained on the ceiling. They were glassy, unfocused. Fresh beads of sweat rolled down his temples and into his hair.

"Alright, let me take a took."

Peter's eyes were closed, so he didn't see Yinsen beckon Tony over. He inclined his head toward Peter's hand. It looked incredibly small, and not to mention pale, in comparison to Yinsen's.

Marring the skin on the back of Peter's hand was a large, swollen, ugly red mark. There was no blood or evident dermal damage, but _something_ had to have created the wound.

"If I didn't know any better," Yinsen whispered, "I'd say it was some sort of insect bite."

_Transport. Spider. New roommate._

"Are you telling me they purposefully got this kid spider-bitten and left him with us to pick up the pieces?"

"Sh!" Yinsen held a finger to his lips. "He's dozed off."

Peter's quick lay-down on the cot had turned into a full-scale nap, the pained lines previously on his face smoothing out with the release of sleep.

"I think rest will do him some good. Might help bring his hear rate down."

"What is this? What need do they have for a child in a place like this?"

Yinsen shrugged. He carefully pulled Peter's hoodie off sleeve by sleeve, folding it slowly and placing it on a nearby table. He drug the bed covers up and underneath Peter's chin. "My best guess? A young, healthy test subject. He was most likely a victim of circumstance. Though I am unsure how circumstance landed him here, of all places."

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter Two

The screaming started up again the next night.

 Yinsen and Stark had spent the day getting to know Peter. Both were concerned about his physical welfare, which Yinsen was diligently keeping track of, but his mental health was also a major priority. Neither adult had the guts to ask the kid how long he’d been in the hands of the rebels. There was a good chance he didn’t know, and pointing that out would only stress him out more. So, through some sort of unspoken agreement, Stark and Yinsen decided to kept conversation topics light.

This wasn’t hard for Peter; the boy was full of an ever-present childish wonder that Stark couldn’t help but enjoy. He was a breath of fresh, non-dusty, youthful air.

When he wasn’t literally spilling his guts on the cave floor, at least.

The kid’s condition only worsened as time passed. The sweating from his fever (that refused to break) brought with it cot-shaking tremors. Yinsen always knew to check on Peter when he could hear the metal legs of the bed vibrating against the rock floor. There wasn’t much the doc could actually do, but Tony admired the effort.

 The three of them had gone through the rest of the day uneventfully. Sometime between morning and evening another cot was brought into the room, along with the delivery of the day’s dinner: baked beans. Again. It was almost always baked beans. Occasionally Stark and Yinsen would get lucky and receive some rice, maybe even bread to go along with it if they’d been extra compliant.

 About two weeks back, Tony had become increasingly annoyed with the limited menu selection. He’d expressed his distaste for the daily meal to one of his captors, and was promptly punched in the nose so hard he’d tasted blood for several days.

 “ _He said, ‘Complain again and you’ll be feasting upon shit,”_ Yinsen had translated for him, _“Or something like that.”_

Peter had no qualms about the food. He insisted Yinsen and Stark eat it all themselves, taking into consideration the fact that he’d had trouble even keeping water down for most of the day.

“It-It’s okay, Mr.Stark. Mr.Yinsen, I’m fine, really. I’m just not hungry.” He eyed the bean pot resting over the fire, eyes barely open and a hand held over his nose.

“What is it, Pete? I can’t possibly smell _that_ bad. I know I left my Tom Ford Tobacco Oud Eau De Parfum at home, but I’ve been told I naturally smell of daisies and sunshine, so you shouldn’t have such a disgusted look on your face.”

“Oh, it’s n-not you, Mr.Stark.” Peter closed his eyes, temporarily unplugging his nose to release a deep breath. “It’s the beans, I think. The smell is so _strong._ In a bad way _.”_

“That would be your nausea acting up,” Yinsen explained. “You’re probably sensitive to olfactory stimulation at the moment.”

Peter nodded. “I don’t know. Maybe.” Yinsen had found a spare bucket under one of the workbenches, and it had begun functioning as Peter’s puke receptacle. He cautiously leaned over and slid it out from beneath the cot, poised over top in anticipation of another episode. “I think it’s more than that. Everything’s stronger. More potent, I guess.”

A pause as the men turned their heads, eyes landing anywhere but the cot behind them while Peter heaved into the bucket. Tony’s own stomach clenched in sympathy and, if he was being honest, a little bit of disgust. He pushed his bowl of beans away from him.

 Peter wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Someone’s coming,” he said weakly.

 Yinsen’s brows furrowed. “What makes you think so?”

“I can smell him,” Peter explained slowly, eyes unfocused. “Gunpowder. And hair gel, maybe.” He was silent for a moment. “Can we turn the lights off? M-my head is really pounding right now.”

Yinsen set his own dinner bowl on a workbench, scraped clean of its previous contents and turned upside down, presumably to lessen the smell for Peter. “I’m sorry, Peter. The lights stay on. We don’t have control over them.”

The kid threw an arm over his eyes and sighed. “They’re just...bright.”

 Tony chuckled, finishing off his own beans and following Yinsen’s example of flipping his dish. “I’d hope so. I like knowing I’m not pissing on anything important in the middle of the night-“

“That’s enough, Stark,” Yinsen said gently.

 “What? You can’t tell me you’d wanna whip it out in the dark, Yin.”

 “No, Tony, really. Listen carefully.”

 Everyone went quiet. For several moments, the only sounds were breathing and water dripping in some distant part of the cave. Then Tony heard it. The shrieking, pained shouts. Irregular in occurrence, but volume increasing periodically.

“Huh. Guess they’re back at it. Part of the all inclusive kidnapping package, Petey. Just gotta tune it out, right, Yin?”

 Tony’s eyes were trained on the still-lit dinner fire, so he didn’t understand why Yinsen wasn’t replying.

 “Yin? Hello?”

 “Hush,” Yinsen said.

 “Did you actually just tell me to _hush?”_

 Yinsen’s eyebrows were shot high, pointer finger aimed at Peter’s cot.

 Peter had taken his jacket and wrapped it around his head, evidently as a set of makeshift earmuffs. His eyes were squeezed shut. Tony wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the flickering firelight, but he could have sworn there was a tear making its way down his cheek.

 Yinsen spoke, his voice barely a whisper. Tony had to read his lips to fully comprehend his words. “The smell, the hearing. His senses are abnormally heightened.”

Peter nodded, hands still holding his jacket over his ears. The screaming from the other room intensified enough to force the kid into a ball on top of his cot, head tucked into his knees. Tony never noticed how baggy the kid’s clothes were until now, his jeans and t-shirt falling into pools of dirty fabric around his limp form. More evidence of his time with the rebels. He must have been there longer than Tony originally expected.

 If he’d been with the rebels for an extended period of time, why hadn’t he been placed with Yinsen and Stark before now? Tony recalled how Peter had shown up with blood crusted to his clothes, but no open wounds deep enough to warrant that much bleeding.

 They must have been doing other things to him before they gave him the insect bite, things that had already healed. Maybe testing his overall physical health, setting baselines for normal physiological functions. They needed an experimental control before they could start the _real_ testing.

 It was Tony’s turn to be nauseous.

 What exactly had bit Peter? Tony could only assume it was a spider, he’d be an idiot not to. The nickname he’d been given by their captors was a dead giveaway, along with the small but surprising accurate rendition of a black widow carefully etched permanently into the boy’s skin. The bastards had literally labeled the kid like dinner leftovers in a Tupperware container.

“Yinsen,” Tony whispered as quietly as possible, beckoning the doctor over with a bent finger. “Let me run something by you.”

 “What is it, Tony?”

 “The tattoo on his neck. It’s a black widow, right?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“You think that has anything to do with his condition?”

“I would hope not. He’d be dead by the end of the day without proper treatment. But I don’t think that’s the case, here. There’s been no necrosis of the skin around the bite. In fact, it looks as if the swelling has gone _down,_ but his symptoms have remained, if not worsened. I am at a loss regarding what could have given him that bite.”

Tony’s eyes traveled over Yinsen’s shoulder and over to Peter, still huddled in a ball on his cot. His breathing was constant but quick, his abdomen rising and falling at a pace too fast to be relaxing.

“What if it was a spider and then some?”

Yinsen’s brows furrowed. “Are you implying Peter was used as a test subject of some sort?”

“Why else would they use him? It’s not like he could contribute to their cause. He’s just a child.” He paused. “Introduce a young, healthy boy to a genetically modified arachnid and see what happens. Doesn’t sound too far fetched for these people.”

“I’m not sure they have the technology or expertise to do such a thing. You’re only alive because they need you to build the Jericho missile. If they can’t perform such a task on their own, do we really think they’d be able to do something as biologically advanced as alter the genetic code of a black widow spider to be non-lethal or physiology-altering?”

 “So you’re thinking the bite may be changing Peter somehow?”

Peter whimpered behind Yinsen and Tony’s backs. Whether it was because he was listening to their conversation or still in pain, Tony didn’t know. Either way, Stark reminded himself to lower his volume. He didn’t need to be overhearing this topic of conversation, especially if none of it ended up being true. There was no point in worrying him unnecessarily.

“That would be my best guess. That would explain his sudden extreme sensitivity to smell and sound. Maybe those senses are becoming enhanced.”

Tony had an intimate relationship with machines. Numbers, calculations, programming; all were his best friends, his partners in crime. He understood them, and because of that, he’d created some amazing things. He wasn’t totally ignorant in the field of biology, but nowhere advanced enough to genetically modify an insect. Or anything else, for that matter.

“What if they have another Yinsen?”

“Stark, you’re going to have to explain that one.”

“I’ve got bomb shrapnel floating around inside of my thoracic cavity, and I’m alive because you had the expertise to fix me. Not many people would think to put a hugeass magnet in someone’s chest.”

Yinsen’s arms were crossed. “Your point?” He looked upset, almost as if he’d taken Tony’s words as a complaint or insult.

“Maybe they have more people like you holed up in here. Geniuses with out-of-the-box ideas. I think it’s plausible that they’d have a few other mad scientists tucked away.”

“Why, though?” Tony could see the gears spinning behind Yinsen’s eyes, the doctor mentally considering every possibility. “What need would they have for a mutant spider?”

Something clicked in Tony’s mind, the pieces finally falling into place.

“A mutant spider makes mutant soldiers.”

“You’re implying that they’re trying to create an army of super soldiers?”

Tony was on a roll now, pacing back and forth in front of a workbench. He’d rid himself of his habit of running his hands through his hair weeks ago. This wasn’t exactly a five star joint; any sort of bathing options were few and far in between. His hair tended to get greasy. Constantly touching it only made it worse. He’d replaced the hand-through-the-hair with fiddling with any object he could find. This time he had a screwdriver in his grasp and was passing it from hand to hand absentmindedly.

“In the future, anyways. Whatever bit the kid was probably the first test. Once they’ve got the formula perfected, they’ll most likely move on to new subjects. But what kind of super soldier has nothing but enhanced hearing and smell? I admit, those things could be useful, but they definitely aren’t going to win any wars.”

Yinsen walked away without a word, slowly and quietly padding over to Peter. He’d dozed off again, as he’d done frequently for almost the last 24 hours. Whatever was coursing through him was definitely wearing him out.

“I would think,” Yinsen said hesitantly, a steady hand sweeping the sweat-soaked hair off of Peter’s forehead, “that there will be more side effects appearing in the coming days.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Chapter Three

Peter’s nausea finally subsided 48 hours after his arrival.

It replaced itself with a raging, persistent hunger.

Peter held a hand out in front of him and shook his head. “No, Mr.Yinsen, I’m okay. Really. I don’t need any more.” His stomach chose that moment to release a hearty growl, effectively revealing his lie.

Tony chuckled. “Nice, one kiddo. Betrayed by your own digestive system. Give the man your bowl.”

Peter begrudgingly handed his bowl to Yinsen. The doctor scooped several ladle-fulls of beans into the kid’s bowl and passed it back to him. “If you’re hungry, Peter, eat. We do not know what your body is going through right now. This extra nutrition may be vital to your recovery.”

The improvement of the kid’s condition in the last 24 hours was nothing short of miraculous. His fever had broken sometime in the night and he’d been on a steady incline ever since. Renewed energy. The palor of his face had faded significantly, leaving behind a rosy tint to his cheeks that looked much more natural and Peter-like despite Tony having never seen the child in a healthy state. The swelling around the bite on his hand had even lessened, leaving behind a small, shiny red scar. It seemed horribly out of place on the boy despite matching his other scrapes and bruises, the mark marring the smooth skin of his right hand.

The only downside to his improvement was his significantly increased appetite. The rebels had accounted for Peter’s presence by increasing the two prisoners’ food rations. There were now plenty bean-and-rice portions for three people. The only issue was that Peter was _eating for three people._

He’d been trying to hide it, but Tony saw him eyeing the bean pot over the fire, quickly averting his eyes when himself or Yinsen caught him.

“Do you think maybe this is just because he was sick? Like, he’s trying to replenish what he deposited in the Bank A La Vomit in the last 24 hours?”

Yinsen was giving Peter another physical; feeling his forehead, checking pupil reaction, just giving him a general check-up. He’d been doing something similar almost every hour since Peter’d stopped wrenching up bile between breaths.

The smile on Yin’s face told Tony the doc was happy with what he was seeing. The smirk faded, though, when he lifted Peter’s shaggy hair and examined the tattoo on his neck.

“The bite is healing, but the tattoo is still inflamed. I don’t quite understand that. You must be allergic to one of the additives in the ink.”

Peter, sitting cross legged on his cot and looking something like a small child, spun around so quickly Tony almost hasn’t seen him move. “Tattoo? Like, _tattoo_ tattoo?”

“You were unaware?”

“Uh, _yea._ Aunt May would _murder_ me if I ever got a tattoo. Where is it exactly?”

Yinsen gently grasped Peter’s hand and guided it around to the back of his neck, releasing it once the boy’s fingers were over the mark.

“Oh my god, the back of my neck? That’s just tacky. Please tell me it’s something tasteful, at least.”

Tony scoffed. “Oh, you’ll love it, kid. It’s a pretty badass spider-“

“ _A spider?_ That’s-that’s awful! May is going to think I’m in a gang or something, oh geez, she’s just-“ Peter’s shoulders rolled inward, his chin almost touching his chest. Seeing how quickly he’d gone from being a Chatty Cathy to void of all hope was incredible in the worst possible way. “She isn’t here. I guess it doesn’t really matter.”

“May I ask who May is?” Yinsen asked gently. His tone was interested, but not overly so. He’d phrased it casually enough that Peter had the option to not answer if it would make him uncomfortable.

There was a relatively clean washcloth in Yinsen’s hand that he’d dipped in water and was now running over Peter’s tattoo, gently dabbing at the edges of the colored image as if the water itself would cleanse the boy of his pain, his suffering.

“My aunt,” Peter replied. “We’re pretty close, her and I. After uncle Ben… Something happened to Uncle Ben, and it went from her, my uncle and I to just the two of us. It’s been that way for a while now.” Peter paused, eyes glassy and trained on nothing in particular. He winced when Yinsen brushed over a particularly sensitive part of his neck. “She’s probably really worried about me.”

Yinsen sighed. “I would think so.”

 “I-I don’t even know how long I’ve been gone.”

 “I’ve been here about two months,” Tony offered, having no way to really console the boy. There would have been no way for Tony to know how long ago Peter was nabbed by the rebels, but he was mad at his own uselessness nonetheless. “Yinsen a little longer than that. They just brought you to us two days ago, so I can’t imagine you’ve been here too long.”

“But there was…” Peter’s words trailed off. His lips were still moving, but no noise escaped from between them. He looked as if he were talking out his thoughts silently, sorting through them with an invisible companion.

“There was what, Petey?”

“There was more time.” He was making eye contact now. The suddenly intensity of the kid’s gaze made Tony made him wriggle in his seat. He’d begun tossing his bean spoon from hand to hand in an attempt to break the tension.

 “I’m missing chunks of time. Sometimes they’d come in and, um, rough me up a little. I know they didn’t do it endlessly, but sometimes everything would just go black and by the time I woke up, I’d have no idea how long I’d been out.”

 Peter’s clothes had been crusted with dried blood and sweat when he arrived. Tony had noticed scratches and scars dispersed among Peter’s limbs, some healed over but some new enough to be scabs. But, if the older wounds had enough time to fully mend, that meant Peter had been in Afghanistan longer than any of them knew.

“Well, kiddo, time is an unreal concept simply created for the sake of mankind’s sanity, so let’s not sweat it. How about we clean up dinner and get to work, huh?”

Yinsen was shaking his head on the other side of the room, his chest expanding and deflating with a deep sigh. Tony knew he’d been a bit dismissive, maybe even tactless. But what else was he supposed to do? The kid was spiraling. He needed a distraction, so Tony did what he does best; deflect and change the subject.

Peter looked confused. The way he scrunched his eyebrows together and tilted his head reminded Stark of a puppy. “Get to work? On what?”

“Ah, I forgot we haven’t really filled you in since you’ve been, you know, basically immobile and comatose for almost two days.”

Yinsen took a seat on the other end of Peter’s cot. “Our lovely hosts have taken Stark hostage in an attempt to coerce him into building a missile.”

“A missile? What kind of missile?”

Yinsen turned to Tony with raised eyebrows, silently asking for permission to continue. The Jericho missile, so far, had only been introduced to the US army and Tony’s own production team back at Stark Industries. The new weapon hadn’t been introduced to the public.

The Jericho missile was the sort of weapon that required a ten-year design and development plan. Tony had the thing designed and assembled in less than three of course, but needless to say, it was a force to be reckoned with. Nobody beside SI staff knew about its existence except the Marine base Tony had done the demo at, and now the rebels holding him captive.

So should a kid like Peter really have that kind of knowledge? Tony could downplay the whole thing, say the rebels just wanted some generic weapons that they didn’t have the brains to assemble themselves.

But as he observed Peter’s wide eyes and genuine fascination, the hand absentmindedly rubbing at the unwanted tattoo on the back of his neck, he decided the kid had been through enough. No more lies or half-truths.

“The Jericho missile,” Tony finally spat out. “A new Stark Industries weapon I was demonstrating,” he paused, “ _selling_ , to the US military. These men have gotten their hands on some of them, damaged ones, though, and want me to fix them.”

Peter looked absolutely appalled. “You aren’t going to do it, are you?”

Tony slapped a hand against his sternum and feigned surprise. He’d forgotten about the magnet, though, and flinched when he felt it shift within his chest. Once he’d composed himself, he chuckled and shook his head. “Of course not. I may be an asshole, but I’m not an idiot.”

Peter’s gaze was no longer on Tony’s face, but on the round shape protruding from his shirt, and the wires connecting it to the car battery positioned on the workbench next to Tony’s chair. He must not have noticed it before now, lost in the haze of his own previous illness. “You’re not an asshole,” he said quietly. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say more, but Tony help up a hand and stopped him in his tracks.

“Yea, it’s crazy looking, isn’t it?” He rotated in his seat so Peter had a full view of the magnet, of its sheer bulk. “Mr.Yinsen over there fashioned this bad boy.”

“Way to make me sound like a mad scientist, Stark.”

“Why did you do it though? Did _they_ make you? Did they do experiments on him too?”

 So, Peter was aware of the role he played here. Not simply a toy, but a test subject.

“No. Stark came to me gravely injured.” Peter’s face went slack with surprise. Yinsen continued speaking. “A victim of his own creation. He’d been a little too close to one of his own missiles and ended up with a thoracic cavity full of shrapnel.”

“But why-? Oh! You’ve implanted the magnet to repel the shrapnel! I mean, I can only assume a place like this doesn’t have equipment sophisticated enough to do the sort of operation required to remove it all, so the magnet’s just a temporary fix, but really, it’s an awesome idea, I wonder how much voltage you could throw at it before the repulsion is too strong and it just shoots the shrapnel into the body cavity instead of keeping it stationary-“

Yinsen took a few steps back as if he were giving Peter space to think. Parker’s hand was dancing through the air, tracing imaginary numbers and graphs with his index finger. If he messed up, he’d shake his head and swipe his palm in front of him as if it were erasing the mistake.

Tony rose from his seat and stood next to Yinsen. “Is he...Is he calculating electromagnetic pull in his head?”

 “I believe so, Stark.”

 Eventually, Peter’s hands dropped from the air and into his lap with a satisfied _thump._ He was actually _smiling,_ pearly teeth shining through his grin. “You’ve managed to repel the shrapnel, make the magnet anatomically compatible, _and_ keep from electrocuting him every five seconds. Those calculations are _ridiculous_. Man, that is so cool!”

Yinsen could only chuckle. “Well, I’m glad you think so.”

“Now, what were we going to work on, Mr.Stark?”

 Tony had been so focused on Peter that he’d forgotten how the entire conversation had started. “Oh! Yea. Hop on over here, I’ll fill you in. Alright, so, as much as I appreciate Yinny putting this lovely magnet in my chest, I hate it.”

Peter snorted a little and then quickly reigned himself in, probably afraid of offending the doctor.

“We’re making a new one. One that doesn’t have to be connected to a car battery, because as you can imagine, toting this thing around is horribly inconvenient.”

“And despite being a large battery, it’s going to run out eventually.”

“Exactly. So we’re using that, if you could bring that over here,” Tony motioned to a deformed but identifiable Jericho missile on a workbench across the room. It wasn’t the actual missile, as the main body was several feet long and several hundred pounds heavier than any of the cave’s workbenches could hold. Tony had been given one of the counterparts, a smaller rocket than the original but still capable of doing some serious damage if in the wrong hands. It sat among an array of random tools and scrap metal, but Peter picked it out of the rubble almost instantly. “I think I may need some help with it. Mr.Yinsen, maybe give me a hand?”

“Sure thing, Peter.”

 The two of them positioned themselves at the edge of the workbench and each grabbed an end of the missile.

“Mr.Stark, this thing isn’t going to randomly go off and kill all of us, right?”

“Nah. If the rebels couldn’t get it to go off when they were actually trying, I doubt it’ll go off now.”

 “You _doubt_ it?”

 “Fine. I’m sure it won’t.”

 “Do you think it was a dud?”

 “Parker, I’m offended. Tony Stark does not make _duds._ Now bring it over here.”

Yinsen readjusted his grip on the tail-end of the missile. “Alright, Peter. On three. One, two- _Oh shit!”_

Oh shit; a very not-Yinsen thing to say. Something smacked into the cave ceiling with a resounding _clank-ching!_ Metal crackled, and bits of rock rained from above. By the time Tony had processed what was going on around him, the missile was on the floor and Peter had a look on his face like he’d just won the lottery, but instead of being excited about it, he was absolutely terrified.

“Did you butter-fingered bastards drop my missile?”

“N-no,” Yinsen whispered. “Peter threw it.”

“I didn’t! I mean, I did, but I didn’t- I just lifted and it went _way_ higher than it was supposed to. Mr. Yinsen was helping, though! Maybe he-“

“Peter, I hadn’t even raised my arms yet.” Yinsen paused, letting the impact of his words sink in. “You’ve just baseball-tossed a two hundred pound torpedo into the cave ceiling with little-to-no effort.”

 Tony blanched. “Peter, how did you-“

“Someone’s coming,” He interrupted hurriedly, the tone in the room quickly switching from one of awe to tense anticipation. The enhanced hearing Peter had developed after the bite hadn’t faded in the last two days, according to Yinsen’s observations and Peter’s own word. Stark trusted the kid’s ears.

 “How many?”

 “I can’t tell. More than one, but not a ton. Why are they coming? Why now?”

“They’ve got cameras in here. You’ve finally stopped vomiting, you’re awake and alert, and you’ve just lifted a missile on your own. They’re seeing promising results.” Yinsen seemed to hate his own words, each one dripping with distaste. The implication behind them seemed to frighten him more than the sudden rapping of knuckles on their door.

There was a seemingly endless stretch of back and forth banter between Yinsen and the leader of the group outside. Tony didn’t know exactly what was being said, but he could read body language well enough to know that Yinsen was upset, maybe even worried by what he was being told. He fought back after every statement, but ultimately lost when they decided opening the door would be much easier than arguing.

The door latch clicked, hinges squeaking as the slab of metal was thrown open. Yinsen stumbled backward a few feet to avoid getting thrown against the wall.

Stark identified the head honcho right away. It was the same person who’d led the majority of Tony’s own torture sessions, a bald man with a dangerous glint in his eye and an obvious flare for the dramatic. He stomped to the middle of the room and toed the dented Jericho missile with the tip of his boot.

“Hmph. Promising.”

 Peter was frozen where he stood, eyes wide and frantic as he took in the three men walking toward him.

“Hold on, wait, hey!” Each one was grabbing at him, fighting his squirming as best they could. Tony guessed that they underestimated Peter’s newfound strength; he flung himself backward hard enough to knock two of them into a workbench. His legs flew forward into the third man, propelling him over to their leader. The two of them were a tangle of limbs and shouts, eventually tripping over the discarded missile on the floor and collapsing to the ground.

The leader was back up in a flash. “ _Restrain him! And do it right!”_

 Yinsen and Tony both stepped toward Peter.

“Please,” Yinsen pleaded, “he needs more time to recover! There’s still so much we don’t know-“

“Ouch! Hey, what, _whoa,_ Mis’r Stark, M-mis’r Yinsen, I k’nda feel...jelly.” Any tension in the kid’s muscles disappeared and his eyes slid closed. Tony hadn’t seen one of the lackeys injecting a sedative into the side of Peter’s neck.

“Put him down! Hey asshats, let him go!” Tony’s attempt to sock one of them in the nose was a literal smashing success, but all it earned him was his own fist to the face. The cords leading from his chest to the car battery acted as a sick sort of tether, preventing him from acting quickly and evading the blow.

The sound of his own nose cracking distracted him, and the four men managed to make it through the door, Peter in tow, and lock it behind them before stars stopped dancing in front of Tony’s eyes.

“What’re they doing?” He asked, voice raspy and lungs heaving as he gathered his bearings. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth.

Yinsen sat cross-legged on the floor, staring at the abandoned, broken-apart Jericho missile.  “They’ve seen improvement. Promising physical signs that point toward the results they’ve wanted all along. I can only assume they’ve taken him to do more _testing._ Their own misguided version of it, at least.”

  
  
  



	4. Chapter Four

“What do you think they’re doing to him?”

Tonyhadn’t sat still for more than ten seconds in the last several hours. Ever since those fucking thugs stumbled in and took Peter, his head had been pounding with the fear of what they were capable of. What they were willing to do.

“More tests, I presume.” Yinsen had been, more or less, the picture of serenity and calm. Tony had a feeling it was for his own sake; both of them freaking out would help no one. Yin was probably holding himself together so they both didn’t absolutely lose it. Plus, from what Stark has observed, Yinsen’s toned- down personality resulted in only mild reactions to most things, no matter how severe the situation. Sure, he showed emotion and could get riled up at times, but was level-headed enough to reign himself in when needed.

Peter had only been with Tony and Yinsen for two days, and Tony wasn’t sure he could handle it if anything drastic happened to him. No, he didn’t know the kid personally. Not at all, in fact. How old was he? What were his interests? Favorite school subject? Such simple questions that Tony could have asked him before now. He’d been so focused on Peter getting better that he’d ignored everything else. He could only focus on the physical aspects of healing, which was a huge mistake. Asking those simple questions may have given the kid a sense of normalcy, a sense of self.

Or, Tony realized, they could have just made him homesick.

The lines between right and wrong were so blurred now, cave walls and echoing shouts drowning out the voices in Tony’s head that usually guided him.

While Peter’s personality was just fine and dandy, Tony had a feeling he was really wrapped around the kid’s finger for just that reason; he was a kid. He didn’t deserve to be here, in the hands of such unloving, heartless people in harsh, inhuman conditions.

Tony never wanted kids. He used to imagine it, sometimes, but never even considered it being a reality. How could he? He had his entire life ahead of him. Stark Industries. Pepper, if he was so lucky. His hobbies. Freetime. Parties. There was no room for a child in that mix. Not now, not ever.

Not to mention the fact that he didn’t want to find out what kind of father he would be. He’d had friends with kids in the past who told him it was all about “having faith” or simply “trying your best.” That wasn’t something Tony could get on board with. There had to be standards, had to be a set of universal laws or something to guide you and tell you exactly what you needed to be doing. Parenting wasn’t something to freelance. Howard Stark didn’t know that, and look what happened. No, Tony wouldn’t be a father. Being a father would only place him one inch closer in similarity to Howard, and Tony simply couldn’t stomach it.

But that in no way meant Stark discredited the work done by other parents, or those who chose to take on the roll even if the kid wasn’t biologically theirs. His own mother was a godsend. He’d met some well-mannered, amazing kids that were undoubtedly results of fantastic parenting. Peter, for example.

Tony almost couldn’t help but smile when recalling the memory; it was shortly after Peter’s arrival to the cave. It had been several hours since he’d began vomiting, and his fever was roaring. A bout of delirium had definitely set in, but confusion and slurred words did nothing to deter Peter’s constant chattering.

“Wow, Mis’r Stark, it’s-it’s so cool to be in y’r workshop right now. Like, whooooa. I’ve h’rd so much ab’t you. I’m a huuuuge fan, Mis’r Stark. Mis’r Yinsen, did you know Mis’r Stark has won, like, a TON of awards? Like, so many. He’s soooooooo cool. I used to watch him on my tv and read every newspaper article ab’t him and _man,_ you’ve made soooooo much cool stuff, Mis’r Stark. I can’even believe it, I’m trapped in the same cave as _the_ Mis’r Stark, I mean, what’re the chances? You’ve made sooo much cool stuff, sir…”

The babbling went on for several minutes, Peter’s awe and admiration of his mentor unintentionally spilling out thanks to his lowered inhibitions. The whole ordeal was heart wrenching to see, and a little gross, if Tony was being honest. He wasn’t a huge fan of hearing _anyone_ say name in between puking bouts. But the pure, undiluted admiration the kid had for Tony definitely pulled at his heartstrings.

Peter was, without a doubt, one of those kids that had gotten some fantastic parenting. How many kids do you run into that only refer to people older than them as _Mister?_ How many of them actually say please and thank you? Don’t talk back? Are cooperative and mature? Peter was one of the few. The kid, despite his less than ideal physical condition, managed to repeatedly thank Yinsen for things as simple as blotting the sweat from his forehead. It was definitely a sight to see.

So how was Tony supposed to imagine him back in some dark room, alone and afraid? Or some room lined with too-bright overhead LEDs and trays full of needles? Tied to a chair in the same dirty clothes he arrived in?

“He will live,” Yinsen said gently, pulling Tony from his stupor. Now that the Jericho missile had been busted up and broken open courtesy of Peter’s sudden strength, Stark was able to pull the parts he needed to make his new magnet from within. Tony had thrown himself into his work as soon as Peter was gone, not knowing what to do with himself now that the kid wasn’t with him. He needed something to take his mind off the whole ordeal. Building the new device that would keep his heart beating didn’t totally relax him, but it at least stopped the steady stream of “What If’s” spinning around his head.

“How do you know?”

Yinsen was lying on his own cot, eyes unfocused and aimed at the ceiling. “He’s useful now. A successful project. They won’t risk ruining that.”

“I’m guessing by _ruin_ you mean they’re not going to accidentally kill him.”

“Yes, pretty much.”

“Fantastic.”

The cot groaned as Yinsen sat up, releasing a tense grunt as he swung his legs over the side and came to stand behind Tony. His hand made its way to Stark’s shoulder and squeezed, a grounding presence when Tony felt like the world was about to swallow him whole.

“Might as well make ourselves useful, eh? Let us get that magnet out of your chest.” Yinsen scooted the car battery sitting on the workbench next to Tony aside, and pulled the Jericho missile forward. “Where do we start? And where is your blueprint?”

The idea of a task, of a goal, something Tony could work toward, drew his attention. He’d always enjoyed starting new projects. The prospect of _finishing_ those projects helped motivate him. It was like winning a race against yourself; you’ve faced a plethora of obstacles, been through hardships. Which ones drag you down and keep you from reaching the finish line? The physical trauma? Or your own mind blockading you from success?

“It’s in here,” Tony said, tapping his finger to his temple. “Sorry, Yin, I won’t write it down. Don’t want the specs for this kind of tech getting into the wrong hands. I’m afraid you’ll be taking on the roll of _sexy_ _assistant with the glasses and well-pressed pants_ today.”

“Alright, Tony.” Yinsen’s voice carried an exasperated tone, but the smile on his face was genuine. “I’m the sexy assistant.”

“Damn right you are. Hand me those pliers.”

* * *

“This is...impressive, to say the least.”

The bald-headed man was back. He’d been at the forefront of Peter’s mind for the last several days, his smug face plastered on the back of Peter’s eyelids. His crooked, close-mouthed grin.

Peter could do nothing but groan in response, his attention focused solely upon the sheet of scrap metal held precariously above his head.

“That’s roughly five hundred pounds you’re holding, son.”

Peter had had no choice in the matter. He’d been knocked out cold, he didn’t know for how long, then woke abruptly to the sound of clanking chains and something pinching his ankles. The chair was ripped out from beneath him, and by the time he was fully aware of his surroundings, he was fully chained to the stone wall next to him.

The midday sun beat down on his face and burned his cheeks. He thought about taking his shirt off to battle the heat, but decided against it when he realized it would only further expose his sensitive skin.

Opening his eyes fully was difficult. Peter hadn’t been outside the cave since he arrived. He desperately wanted to look at the sky, to fully experience the vast blue he’d dreamed of inbetween fits of conciousness these last few...Last few days? Weeks? Months, maybe?

“Incoming, son!”

“Wh-wha?”

Goosebumps broke out over Peter’s arms. Something cool and prickly ran up his spine and stopped at the base of his neck, making the hairs stand on end. He lost control of his limbs, and his arms flew into the air before he could think about putting them there himself.

“Gah! What the hell is this?”

“Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.”

Whatever had been dropped on Peter was offering a temporary reprieve from the relentless sun, and he used the opportunity to finally open his eyes.

He’d been placed at the top of a small hill, the chains around his ankles securing him to a rock wall directly behind him. From his position he could see a small settlement at the hill’s base, a series of tents and dirty Hum-Vs clustered together. People skirted about, some carrying wooden crates full of unknown objects, others walking as quickly as they could through the sand to and from the cave’s mouth.

Only a handful stopped to look at the boy on the hill, a sheet of scrap metal held above his head. No one seemed to care that that he was fully clothed in the baking desert sun, palms burning against the heated steel. No one seemed to care that the shackles around his ankles seemed nothing short of barbaric.

“I wonder how long you can keep this going before your newfound strength leaves you.”

 _Not much longer,_ Peter thought to himself. He didn’t know how long he’d been standing at the top of that hill, but the muscles of his arms were beginning to tremble.

Someone at the top of the rock wall had dropped the scrap metal from above, and Peter had no choice but to throw his arms up in defense. No one had taken the metal from him once he had it, apparently trying to see how long he could last.

He’d been something close to content for the last two days. The care shown to him by Mr.Yinsen and Mr.Stark had done leagues for his recovery after...After whatever these people had done to him. He wasn’t sure of the nature of the experiments they performed, but he knew that’s exactly what they were. Experiments. Tests. Whether for genuine scientific discovery or simple curiosity, he didn’t know.

Mr.Stark. His presence in itself had been unbelievable. What were the chances? Of all of the people to be kidnapped with, Peter ended up with one of the world’s smartest men and most successful business tycoons, not to mention someone he’d respected and admired for as long as he could remember. He would have been ecstatic to meet him under different circumstances. Although, his presence now almost deflated Peter’s small balloon of hope even more. If _the_ Tony Stark couldn’t escape, how could Peter?

What use did these terrorists have for a kid like Peter? He’d run through the possibilities endlessly, but none fit quite right.

He was an American citizen. Maybe they thought they could use him as leverage against the US Government. But what value would he have to an entire country? He wasn’t famous. He didn’t have an important parent or connections to the government.

Maybe they had spies in the states, and one of them just grabbed him off the streets because he looked like a promising subject. Purely a victim of circumstance. But what were the chances of that? One in a million, maybe less.

Maybe Peter didn’t know his friends or their parents as well as he thought he did, and he’d been offered up by one of them in support of the cause.

He’d audibly scoffed when he thought of that one. It sounded like a shitty action movie plot. Something him and Ned would have come up with in Creative Writing class at school.

Ned. He missed Ned.

And MJ.

And May.

Especially May.

The metal slipped in his hands, and he had to quickly readjust his wrists before he lost control of it completely.

One mistake and he’d likely be flattened by it. Break a few bones, at least. Lord knew they didn’t have the medical equipment here to properly treat such an injury.

“Alright, boys. Give him a break.”

Several men Peter hadn’t noticed moved at the bald-headed man’s command, each one grabbing a part of the sheet metal and taking it from Peter’s hands. They dropped it unceremoniously into the sand. Peter squinted against the granuals that had gone flying into the air.

 _Baldie,_ Peter decided he’d call the leader. _Baldie fits._

Baldie crouched down before Peter, who had fallen to his knees once he’d been relieved of the weight upon him. He could feel the hot sand through the worn fabric of his jeans. 

“Very impressive, son. We didn’t expect such promising results so quickly.”

Peter didn’t respond, only breathed deeply and tried to stop himself from shaking.

“You held that metal for over an hour.”

 _He_ _did_? 

“Granted, you got a few hours of sleep beforehand. That sedative really knocked you down. Although, it was enough for a horse that weighs twice as much as you, so you should technically still be asleep.”

The rubbery feeling in his arms seemed to imply that Baldie’s words held some truth, but how was that possible? How could he have held something so heavy for so long? Usually, he could barely carry his own backpack.

“Well deserving of a break, I think.” Baldie turned to his fellow terrorists and spoke quickly in a language Peter wasn’t familiar with. He caught Stark and Yinsen’s names, but not much else.

He pulled a key out of his pocket and unlocked the shackles around Peter’s ankles.

“See you soon, Parker.”

* * *

 

“Alright, Yinny. Let’s do this.”

Tony stood behind Yinsen, eyes wide as the doctor tilted the smelting pot over the mold for the arc reactor core.

“Very gently,” Tony warned.

Yinsen smiled. “Don’t worry, I have very steady hands. You wouldn’t be alive if I didn’t.”

Just as the liquidy metal began dripping from the pot, the cave door busted open and slammed against the wall. Yinsen, to his credit, didn’t flinch. He placed the smelting pot carefully back on the forge.

“Can we help you?”

The man who had opened the door shoved Peter through the doorway, and Tony was there in an instant catching the kid before he fell to the floor.

“What in the _hell_ did you guys do to him?”

The rebel didn’t dignify Tony’s question with a response, simply pulling the door shut and locking it behind him.

Peter looked as bad as he had when he first arrived, though in a completely different sense of the word. His skin was flushed, but opposed to being covered in a thick sheen of sweat, his complexion was an angry red. It had already begun peeling in places, skin rolling up in chunks on his nose and cheeks and on his forearms. The bottoms of his jeans were dusty and torn, exposing his ankles and the angry red marks that wrapped around them.

He was lucid, though, which was a plus.

Peter smacked his lips together, frowning at the dryness in his mouth. “Its really hot outside, Mr.Stark.”

  
  
  
  
  



	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While this is loosely based off of the first Iron Man movie and Tony’s comic origin, some of the main events will be out of order for the sake of this plot.

“Whatcha workin on, Mis’r Stark?”

Peter stumbled his way to the forge and stood beside it, tired eyes gazing at the smelting pot nestled within the flames.

“Why don’t you take a seat, Peter?” Yinsen gently guided Peter to his cot with a hand on his shoulder. The boy followed orders almost robotically, probably too exhausted from whatever he’d been put through to resist.

“Actually, c’n I stand? ‘s nice and cool ov’r there.”

Peter weakly lifted an arm toward the stone wall at the back of the room. Yinsen looked thoroughly confused, but helped him up and toward it anyways.

“You got a plan, Pete?” Tony asked, almost daring to laugh at the sight of the boy shuffling his way toward the edge of the room.

Peter pushed himself flush with the wall, his cheek pressed against the stone. “Caves ‘r always cold. Th’ rock feels good.” He slid down to the floor, his head tilted back and eyes closed. He was making as much skin-on-rock contact as possible, likely trying to take the sting out of his sunburns.

Yinsen offered the kid a cup of water. He downed it in one gulp and handed it back. “‘M good. M good. But I _do_ wanna know what y’r workin’ on over there.” He lazily pointed at the forge.

 Tony tapped the magnet in his chest twice. “Remember earlier today when I said I needed an upgrade?”

 Peter nodded.

 “This is it. We were just about to pour it when our friendly neighborhood terrorists decided to give you back to us.”

 The kid tried lifting his arms in the air, winced at the way it pulled on the muscles, and put them back down. “I can’t believe I g’t to watch _the_ T’ny Stark, and _the_ M’sr Yinsen, of course, build something. _So_ cool.”

“You’re right, kid, we’re definitely cool. Now, we’re going to go ahead and move on with this, and you can definitely watch if you want, but you look a little tuckered out.”  

He smacked his lips and shook his head. Yinsen handed him another cup of water. “No way. I’m watching.” Peter huffed, and Tony thought it might have been a laugh. “Ned would be so jealous.”

“I’m not sure you’ve told me about Ned,” Tony said, trying to prompt a conversation. He wasn’t sure if talking about Peter’s home life would make him homesick or make him feel relaxed, but there was no way to know for sure unless he actually tried. So, friend-talk it was.

“He’s great,” Peter said simply. “My best friend. We hang out _a lot._ Him, me, and MJ.”

Tony stopped readying the materials for his current project to allow Peter to explain, but he didn’t elaborate on MJ, just continued gushing about Ned.

“Right now we’re building, this, uh, this LEGO Death Star.”

“Like, from Star Wars?” Yinsen asked.

“Yea, Yea! It has, like, over a _thousand_ pieces. We had a good amount of it done and then I tripped and dropped it as I was carrying it to my room and we had to start over. I felt super bad but Ned didn’t seem to mind. He’s chill like that.”

“He sounds like a great person,” Yinsen said. He nodded at the welding gloves on the workbench, silently asking Tony if he was ready to continue now that Peter was settled. Tony tossed the gloves his way.

“Alright, Pete, the Good Doctor and I are going to get started. You can watch if you want, but you look pretty cozy cuddled up to that wall so I promise I won’t be offended if you don’t want to.”

He stood shakily, using the wall as support. He shook his head. “No way. ‘M seein’ this.”

Peter came to stand next to Tony, close enough to see Yinsen work but far enough that he wasn’t feeling the heat of the forge.

“Alright, Yin. Work your magic.”

Peter watched the entire process with genuine interest, eyes wide despite his apparent exhaustion. He was quiet and respectful, not speaking as Yinsen completed the most important parts of the process. Tony was almost worried for the boy as Yinsen was pouring the smelted materials into the mold, because Peter had gone unnaturally still. Tony wrapped an arm around the kid to make sure he wouldn’t collapse, but his extra support was never needed. Peter stood straight and stayed attentive, never totally relaxing until Yinsen removed his gloves and stepped back.

“Now we wait.”

“Where did the design for the new electromagnet come from?” Peter asked, slowly walking back toward the cave wall and taking his place on the floor.

Tony walked over and sat down next to him with a grunt. “You follow my work, Yea? Have you seen the arc reactor I have powering Stark Industries?”

“Yea, everyone in the city has. It was a big clean energy project of yours, right?”

“Exactly. This is a sort of miniature version, I guess. At least, it’s as close to it as I can get with the materials on hand.”

“It’s cooled,” Yinsen told Tony after a while. “Are you ready?”

 Tony cleared one of the workbenches, more or less throwing it’s contents to the floor. He flopped town on the surface, arms at his sides. He felt like a child lying on an exam-room table in a doctor’s office.

 He hadn’t messed with the magnet in his chest much, if at all, since Yinsen put it there in the first place. Why would he want to? Knowing of its presence was distressing enough. He definitely didn’t want to attempt moving or adjusting it. It already wasn’t comfortable, the metal brushing the edges of his chest or poking him if he were to sit or lay incorrectly. Tugging the car battery around was no easy chore, either. This miniature arc reactor would me a tremendous improvement, no doubt. But it had to be inserted first, which was causing Tony no shortage of anxiety.

“Fix me up, doc.”

Peter didn’t observe this time. Tony couldn’t see the boy from his place on the table, but he’d either fallen asleep or couldn’t stomach watching the procedure. Stark figured it was the former.

“He sure is worse for the wear,” Yinsen said as he worked. Tony wasn’t sure how he was capable of literally digging around in his chest and talking about something completely unrelated at the same time, but he wasn’t here to question Yinsen’s abilities.

“He definitely looks a little roughed up.”

Something twinged in Tony’s chest. He flinched, and Yinsen used his left hand to hold his shoulder to the table.

“Sorry, But you must be still.”

“Doin’ my best, Yin.”

 Yinsen worked in silence for several more minutes. Tony could hear water dripping from somewhere deep within the cave, could hear Peter’s even breaths. A random shout or gunshot occasionally broke the silence, but for the most part, the terrorist base was quiet. Tony wondered what time of day it was, where everyone had gone for a place typically so full of chaos to be so uncharacteristically calm.

“He’s not here by chance,” Yinsen said suddenly.

Tony coughed and was once again held down by the doctor. “Come again?”

“Peter. His capture wasn’t by chance. They wouldn’t have him here if he wasn’t important. Think about it. Of all the kids in the world, why him? There must be hundreds, thousands of children in the Middle East that could have been taken with little-to-no-fuss. Most of their parents wouldn’t have even had the courage or resources to look for them. They would have made easy targets. So why take a white, American boy from a well-populated area? Why use the resources to get him here? What does he have to offer?”

Tony felt something click near his sternum, and Yinsen backed away from the table with his hands held out to his sides. They were shiny, like they’d been dipped in some sort of clear liquid. Yinsen’s nose was scrunched like he’d smelled something foul.

Tony took a deep breath and sat up. “Yea, sorry about that Yinny. Non-organic discharge from the magnet. It’s not coming from me.”

“I should hope not. There’s no way that could be healthy.” The doctor grabbed a semi-clean rag and walked to the water bucket, moistening it and running it across one finger at a time.

“Do you think it has something to do with his parents?” Tony asked, continuing their conversation from before.

“You think his parents would have allied with these people?”

“No, not allied necessarily. Maybe they knew someone that exposed them to the terrorists. Offered them up, I guess.”

“They’d have to be particularly important for the terrorists to do such a thing.”

“They were scientists,” Peter said gently. “I think.”

Tony hadn’t realized he’d awoken. He instantly felt guilty; Him and Yinsen had sat and talked about the boy right in front of him. Discussed his kidnapping, of all things. Shitty move.

Yinsen set his rag down. He looked embarrassed as well, if the pink tint of his cheeks said anything, but Tony guessed he was willing to take information as it came. “You think?”

Peter shrugged. He didn’t look particularly upset, just distracted, like his mind was somewhere else. “Didn’t know them that well. They, uh...They died about ten years ago. They both worked for the same company, I’m pretty sure. I don’t remember what they actually did, though.”

 _Quite a loss for someone so young,_ Tony thought to himself. _I guess we have that in common._

“Who do you live with now? You mentioned an aunt before, right?” Tony tried his best to not mention anything in past-tense. To not make anything sound too permanent.

“Yea. Lived with my aunt and uncle. Just my aunt, now.” Tony remembered him saying something had happened to his uncle, but he didn’t describe anything in detail. Tony wasn’t going to ask.

Yinsen sat on his cot. “Do you remember where your parents worked? A company or building?”

Peter scratched his chin. Little pieces of skin flaked off as his fingers moved, accentuating the severity of his sunburn. “It has a really science-y sounding ending on the name, I know that. Ended in Corp, maybe. That sounds right. I think aunt May mentioned them working in a lab.”

Tony ran through a mental checklist of any scientific research companies in New York State that ended in Corp. Sadly, it was about half of them. He almost began naming each one until Peter snapped his fingers. “Oscorp! It was Oscorp.”

Tony choked a little bit. “Your parents worked for _Oscorp_?”

Peter looked offended. Tony must have come off much more harshly than he’d intended.

“I think so. There was a picture of my dad in an old scrapbook of Uncle Ben’s and he was wearing an Oscorp lab coat.”

No company has a flawless reputation. Hell, Stark Industries made _weapons._ They were bound to have some people who didn’t exactly approve of their money-making methods. But Oscorp was notorious for how many lawsuits had been filed against them, most of them accusing the company of unethical testing procedures. Tony’d heard an array of rumors about them, all unlikely but possible things ranging from illegal testing on infants to unreported subject deaths that resulted from failed experiments. Stark took it all with a grain of salt, of course. The company had done _some_ good in the past, making major breakthroughs in the fields of medical technology and genetic research.

“You think my parents’ work may have something to do with,” Peter motioned to the room at large, “ _this?_ Why I’m here?”

Yinsen nodded. “I mean, it is entirely possible-“

Peter shot up from the floor. “They’re coming again.”

Tony was up now, too. He felt oddly free not having a cord attached to his chest, like he’d finally been untethered. After over a month of being leashed to a car battery, being able to walk and move about of his own accord was nothing short of fantastic. “How do you know?”

“I can hear them talking. Their voices are getting louder, but not like they’re yelling. It’s like they’re coming closer.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know, I can’t tell-“

The door was thrown open, and men flooded into the cave. They were shouting immediately, several of them shooting toward Peter at once.

“No, hold on-!” Tony’s outburst was cut short when he realized they weren’t trying to take the kid; they were restraining him. They just needed more than one person to do it because of his strength. In his current weakened state, the five men holding him back was plenty. Peter didn’t resist. He was probably too tired to try.

There was a painfully familiar face among the rebel crowd. The bald man whom Tony had encountered at the start of his incarceration was back, and despite not knowing how to translate whatever language he was speaking, it was obvious that he was directing his men to nab Yinsen.

They manhandled the doctor into a kneeling position, forcing his right cheek dangerously close to the still-hot forge.

Tony stepped forward to protest, and a dozen guns were suddenly aimed his direction. “Hey! Hey, okay. That’s not necessary.”

The bald man (whom Tony suddenly decided he’d call Baldwin, since ‘the bald man’ was really a mouthful) spoke quickly, his tone frustrated. Yinsen responded just as fast. Baldwin shouted back, aiming a pointed index finger at Tony’s chest. Tony heard the word Jericho, but not much else.

The exchange went back and forth several times, both Baldwin and Yinsen equally frustrated. Peter had obviously given up ages ago on trying to understand the conversation topic; his attention was entirely on Yinsen and the hot coals that were dangerously close to his face.

“They want to know why we’ve made so little progress,” Yinsen said breathlessly, “and why we built you a new magnet instead of repairing the missile.”

“Well I can’t work if I can’t move around. Something had to give, there.”

Tony didn’t know how accurately Yinsen translated that, but it must not have been well enough, because his captor shoved his face just a few millimeters closer to the forge.

“No, stop!”

Baldwin’s eyes landed on Tony expectantly.

“I need him. He’s a good assistant.”

Baldwin just blinked. He carefully reached to his side and grabbed the tongs meant for tending to the forge, gripped a hot coal, and held it above Yinsen’s cheek.

“Okay, okay! Yinsen, tell them we’re still working. We just need some more supplies and a little more time, and they’ll have their missile.”

Yinsen, still on edge, spoke clearly and carefully.

Baldwin snapped at the man holding Yinsen, and he threw the doctor to the floor. The five rebels holding Peter released him reluctantly. They all left the room at once, slamming the door behind them.

Peter swallowed and rubbed at his wrists where the men had restrained him. “What now?” He asked.

Tony sighed. “We build.”

Peter tilted his head. “The missile?”

Tony blew a raspberry and shook his head. “Hell no. But that’s what they’re going to _think_ we’re building.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unedited.


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an information-heavy chapter. Bare with me.

_“He’s not here by chance,” Yinsen said suddenly._

_Tony coughed and was once again held down by the doctor. “Come again?”_

_“Peter. His capture wasn’t by chance. They wouldn’t have him here if he wasn’t important. Think about it. Of all the kids in the world, why him? There must be hundreds, thousands of children in the Middle East that could have been taken with little-to-no-fuss. Most of their parents wouldn’t have even had the courage or resources to look for them. They would have made for easy targets. So why take a white, American boy from a well-populated area? Why use the resources to get him here? What does he have to offer?”_

* * *

  _Peter swallowed, rubbing at his wrists where the men had restrained him. “What now?” He asked._

_Tony sighed. “We build.”_

_Peter tilted his head. “The missile?”_

_Tony blew a raspberry and shook his head. “Hell no. But that’s what they’re going to think we’re building.”_

* * *

 Peter didn’t know what he would have done without Yinsen. 

For the entire duration of his stay with the doctor and Mr.stark, Yinsen had been kind and caring, stern but supportive. He knew the value of working through pain, but never pushed Peter beyond his limits. It was nice. Refreshing. Lord knows Peter’s captors didn’t have the same values.

Sometimes he’d mentally slip back to that place, to the darkness. To the cold, metal frame of the chair he’d sat in for who knows how long. 

Sometimes his new cot was almost too comfortable. How was he supposed to go from sleeping at a ninety degree angle for days to laying completely flat, much less on something actually resembling a bed? It was a luxury he’d finally gotten used to living without. To say its sudden presence was shocking was an understatement.

To both Peter’s pleasure and his dismay, he hadn’t gotten much use out of his cot in the last few days. He’d been helping Tony and Yinsen plan out and put together...whatever it was that Tony was building. He wouldn’t tell either of them his complete plan, saying he “was way too selfish for anyone else to have his design,” but Peter knew his reservations came from a place of worry and not jealousy. If their captors caught on and figured out something was up, that they weren’t actually building a Jericho missile, the three of them would have been interrogated relentlessly. But, it’s relatively easy to tell when someone doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Tony must have figured that keeping Peter and Yinsen in the dark would protect them. Maybe their interrogators would realize questioning them was a waste of time and let them off easy. 

 _High hopes,_ Peter thought to himself, _for such a hopeless place._

Tony snapped his fingers in front of Peter’s nose. “Wrench.”

That’s how Stark had been communicating for several hours, his sentences reduced to single-word phrases. Too much of his focus was aimed at the task at hand. 

Peter’s eyes scanned the workbench for several seconds. He’d _just_ seen the wrench. Why could he suddenly not find it? It was just here-

“Peter?” Yinsen’s hand was suddenly on Peter’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “Are you doing alright?”

He hasn’t realized he’d begun breathing heavily. “Yea. Yea, all good. All good.”

“ _Wrench,”_ Tony said, less patiently this time around. Yinsen passed him the tool without breaking eye contact. 

“You can take more time to rest if you need it. You’ve been through a serious ordeal.”

“I feel fine.” It was the truth. Physically, Peter had almost totally healed from his previous “session” with the resident terrorists. His sunburns had faded to a modest tan (if the cave lighting was accurate), and the blisters on his hands has either burst or disappeared completely. Yinsen, bless his soul, had seen to Peter and his needs until he was really and truly back on his feet. 

So, no, Peter’s distraction wasn’t a result of his non-existent injuries. Although, he hadn’t exactly felt like himself recently, and he figured it had something to do with...whatever the rebels had done to him. 

He had no idea what to do with his newfound strength. It was as if he could feel it crawling beneath his skin, looking for an outlet but finding none. Not to mention his senses, which had been nothing short of painful. It was as if he’d started experiencing life in HD. Before his involuntary incarceration, Peter had worn glasses. He’d been seeing everything majorly out of focus for most of his life. Most of his childhood photos displayed him, chubby cheeks and messy hair, with thick-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. He wore them day-in and day-out, only taking them off to sleep, swim, and shower. 

One could only imagine how discombobulated Peter was when he woke up in a cave, after being _kidnapped_ , no less, without his glasses. He’d had to see everything blurry around the edges for weeks, the twisted, sweaty faces of his captors fuzzy whilst they went about their-- Peter didn’t want to call it torturing, because that sounded barbaric and dramatic--torturing.  

But since whatever happened happened, Peter’s eyesight had cleared to an almost uncomfortable level. Clear vision in itself was odd compared to how his eyes used to function. Clear vision with the addition of whatever the hell Peter had been injected with...Headache-inducing. His hearing had become the same way, every little noise setting him off. He had yet to test or really grasp the limits of his heightened senses, but it was all unsettling, regardless of their intensity.

And sometimes, when Peter would run his hand across the back of his neck, he felt as if the spider inked there were crawling across his palm. He’d never seen it for himself, taking proof of its presence upon Yinsen and Mr.Stark’s words alone. He was already due for a haircut when he’d been taken and was now in desperate need of a trim. But, if given the chance, would he _want_ the spider on display? Want the embarrassing, unsettling, and honestly tacky evidence of the worst few months (or however long he’d been gone) of his life in full view? 

Maybe he’d just keep his hair long. May never liked it when he did that, but she’d probably rather him look a little scrappy than a little tatted. 

Yinsen smiled, seeing straight through Peter’s lied reassurances. “Alright. If you’re sure you’re okay.” 

Tony lazily tossed the wrench onto the workbench. Peter jumped when it clattered against a pile of other tools. 

“Hey, Yin? Good ol’ pal? Have they brought lunch yet?” 

“An hour ago, Stark.” 

“So the beans are probably cold by now, huh?” 

“Yes. Obviously.” 

“Hey Pete, why don’t you go throw that bean pot on the forge for me.” 

Peter cocked his head. “The forge?” 

Tony looked up from the pile of metal in front of him, taking a break from bolting assorted pieces together to give Peter an exasperated look. “Yea bud. The forge.” 

“That’s, like, way too hot though. Isn’t it? It’ll ruin the pan. And the beans.” 

“The boy is right,” Yinsen interjected. “Our pot is shoddy at best. Maybe we’ll just restart the fire pit, warm them up that way.” 

Peter nodded. “I’ll do that.” He started walking away from Stark’s workspace, happy to have something to do with himself. He’d been _watching_ the man work more than _helping_ him. Stark liked being in control, Peter could understand that. But he couldn’t help feeling majorly out of his intellectual league when he was caught between Doctor Yinsen and Stark. Sure, Peter was smart. Tremendously so. He wasn’t blind to that fact. But whatever Mr.Stark had planned was probably over Peter’s head. The fact that Stark wouldn’t tell him exactly what he was building definitely didn’t help. 

“ _No.”_

“I-I’m sorry?” Peter asked timidly. 

“I said _no._ Just put the beans on the forge. They’ll be fine.” 

“Mr.Stark, I really don’t think-“ 

“Oh my _god,_ kid! Surely you’re not this dense!” 

“Stark!” Yinsen said harshly.

“You’ve not been missing school long enough to justify a lack of common sense this extreme.” 

“That is _enough,_ Tony.” 

Being addressed by his first name seemed to clear Stark’s head a bit, and his eyes widened. He looked shocked at his own words. His steely resolve didn’t waver, though, and he simply went back to his bent pieces of metal. 

“Sorry kid. That wasn’t cool.” 

Peter shook his head, trying to convey any emotion different from the one that was forcing his heart to painfully slap against his sternum. “S’okay.”

Tony said nothing else. Peter went to start up the dinner fire. As much as Stark had frightened him, Parker wasn’t dumb enough to put their one bean pot on the forge. If they ruined their one cooking pot they’d have to start heating their food in smelting pots; metal residue really didn’t mix well with brown rice. 

Peter sat next to the fire as it crackled and sparked, staring into the flames. The heat had become uncomfortable a while ago, but there weren’t many places to mope in a cave with two other people. Besides, fireplaces and fire pits back in New York were a rarity, something to do with the possible risk of starting a quick-spreading blaze and razing the city. Getting to sit next to a real fire was, as ironic as it sounded in the situation, a privilege that Peter wasn’t going to take for granted. 

Peter unintentionally added _fire_ to a list he’d been mentally compiling. He wasn’t sure what the list was really for, what it represented. Things he missed? Valued? Hated? A combination of the three? There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to any of his additions.

“Aaaaand booya!” Tony dropped the welding gun he’d been wielding for the last several hours and stepped away from the table. His face shield pushed back and now resting on top of his head, Peter could now see a thick sheen of sweat shining on his face. 

“You’ve completed them?” Yinsen asked. He’d stopped tinkering with some wires and a metal plate to observe the commotion. 

Tony nodded. “Think so. May have to work out some kinks, but the basic structure is done.” 

Peter left the fire and approached the workbench. After a moment, he realized he’d unintentionally stood closer to Yinsen than Mr.Stark. Judging from the latter’s brief silence, Peter guessed that he’d noticed it as well. 

If Peter didn’t know any better, he’d say there was a pair of metal boots sitting among the workbench’s clutter. 

“Boots,” Peter said simply. 

Tony’s eyes shot toward the corner of the cave. Peter noticed him cataloguing the positions of the security cameras located there. He stepped forward and scooted his boots to the side a few inches, apparently ensuring they were in the cameras’ blind spot. 

“Yes, _boots._ Boots with jets so powerful they can lift several hundred pounds of weight a hundred feet in the air.” 

“No way. Seriously?” All previous hesitations Peter had relating to Tony were wiped from his mind as he approached the boots, folding himself over the tabletop to get a better look. “These are _awesome._ Relatively simple in design, I guess that’s to be expected with such crude materials, but _man,_ if these things really work-“

Tony scoffed. “Of _course_ they work. Don’t ever doubt my craftsmanship.” 

Peter stepped back. “But why build these? I know you’re not going to build the missile, but why give them jet-powered boots?” 

“Who said I was giving these away? These are just a piece of the puzzle, Parker. One brick in the road.” 

* * *

 Tony had been a bit rough around the edges since the day Yinsen met him, however many weeks or months ago that had been. He’d spent a majority of the beginning of his incarceration moping. Granted, there was a magnet in his chest repelling bomb shrapnel from his heart and he was in pain, so Yinsen gave him some leeway for that one. But even after he’d healed enough to be up and about the cave, most of his statements were laced with a whine. 

Yinsen has to admit, though, he’d improved significantly. It was under unfortunate circumstances, but Tony seemed to come to accept the cards fate had dealt him. He did what needed to get done for the sake of his own survival. If he hadn’t evolved, at least he’d leveled out and utilized basic survival instincts. 

None of that meant he’d ever stopped trying to get home. Yinsen, while being a man who didn’t believe in giving up, knew their chances of escape were slim. 

And, in Yinsen’s case, it wasn’t as if anyone was back home was missing him. He didn’t _have_ anyone. Not anymore. 

Tony’s own hurdles didn’t seem to deter him; he’d been an endless fountain of ideas and theories regarding an exit strategy. 

“ _I’ve got a company to run,”_ he’d once said, “ _Some friends to dump my emotional baggage on, and a beautiful woman I’m asking on a date as soon as I get back. No time to waste.”_

No time to waste, indeed. 

Yinsen knew he’d been planning something, but Tony would never let him in on the details. He’d done the same with the arc reactor. Stark claimed it was out of jealousy and selfishness; he said he didn’t want anyone else having his designs. Yinsen knew it was a load of bullshit. Tony didn’t want their torturers having leverage over anyone but himself. It was incredibly self-sacrificial and honorable but also incredibly stupid. Two minds were always better than one, especially when trying to escape a terrorist hideout in the middle of the desert. 

Stark’s planning had ultimately been pushed to the back burner when Peter arrived. Yinsen has never been able to tell if that occurred out of concern for the boy or pure fascination with his sudden appearance, but regardless, Yin was glad Tony’s mind was on something else for once. 

He’d noticed subtle changes in the billionaire as of late, undoubtedly brought on by Peter Parker. He’d been attentive, focused. Worrying about someone else’s well being. It was incredibly refreshing. 

That’s why Yinsen was so surprised by Stark’s outburst at the boy earlier in the day. Tony’s true temper hadn’t reared its ugly head since the post-op pain of his magnet implantation, so why did it come out now? And why had he aimed it at Peter of all people, one of the most gentle and respectful youths Yinsen had ever met? He’d hated seeing the boy so put-off by the ordeal and almost went to keep him company by the fire, but decided against it. He didn’t want to interrupt the closest thing the boy had to alone time in a place like this. 

Stark was hiding something, and it wasn’t just his blueprints. Something regarding his current project was worrying him, stressing him out enough to shout at Peter over heating up beans, of all things. Maybe he’d realized there was an error in his design, a flaw in his plan. 

Yinsen hoped he’d get it sorted out, for everyone’s sake. 

* * *

 Raza had been on hold for twenty minutes. He’d been pacing his tent for just as long, expressing his frustration through short but loud shouts or curses into the phone held to his ear. He knew no-one could hear him; the robotic voice on the other end of the line repeatedly telling him it was _thankful for his patience_ wasn’t going to give a legitimate response. If this burner phone wasn’t currently his only way to connect with the man he was trying to contact, he’d have crushed it beneath his boot and forgotten about it ages ago. 

Business with Obadiah Stane had always been rocky. He was a man with the worst of intentions in every situation, willing to twist as many arms as needed to complete whatever mission he’d set out on. 

But, he was valuable. Very much so. Enough that Raza and Stane has been doing business for years. The company Stane worked for, Stark Industries, had managed to develop some of the most dangerous and effective weaponry of the century. Raza’s own organization, the Ten Rings, needed exactly that. They were large enough in numbers but could truly make an impact if they could blow small villages to smithereens in a single afternoon. Obadiah made it easy. 

He even sold them the weapons at wholesale prices, showing just how little the man cared for his own reputation and how _much_ he appreciated making a quick buck. It was sad, really. Stane had very little self respect. Or a little too much of it.  

“ _This is Stane. Talk to me.”_

Stane had finally decided to pick up. Raza stopped pacing and clutched the phone. “Learn to answer my calls the _second_ I call, or we’re going to have issues.” 

“ _Get your thumb out of your ass, then, and get me some results. You haven’t reported to me ages.”_

“What do you think the purpose of this call is, Stane?”

“ _So you’ve got something?”_

“He’s agreed to build the missile.” 

Obadiah whistled. He laughed quietly, as if the idea was slightly entertaining. “ _Huh. Didn’t see that coming. Tony’s usually way too stubborn to do anything that doesn’t directly benefit him.”_

“I told him I’d reward him with his freedom if he complied.” 

“ _You did_ what?” 

“Stop worrying, Stane. We both know I’d never follow through.” 

“ _I’d sure hope not. I’m paying you way too much for failure._ ” 

“You’re paying me way too little for such a high-profile kill. I had no idea the target would be _Tony Stark.”_

Obadiah sighed. It made Raza want to shoot him point-blank. “ _We’ve had this argument already. I don’t really care if your feelings were hurt, Raza. Besides, you’ve got him. The job’s half done.”_

“If you say so.” 

The line went silent for a few seconds, both men collecting their thoughts. Raza, despite only seeing Stane’s face once, could almost imagine the look that would be plastered upon it as he received video confirmation of Stark’s death. 

Raza didn’t know precisely why Stane had filed a kill order for Tony Stark with the Ten Rings. After all, what would the man’s death bring him? Maybe him and Stark were close, and he was set to inherit the man’s riches if he were to pass away. Maybe it was truly an act of hatred, murder done simply for the sake of killing another individual. 

Whatever the reason, Raza didn’t really care. He was getting paid handsomely for the deed. He’d do as he was told. 

Stane cleared his throat through the phone. “ _And what about the boy?”_

“That’s why I called. Progress. True progress.” 

“ _Really? All that sciencey shit is working?”_

“I guess so. I’m overseeing his general condition, but my scientists are actually performing the necessary tasks and collecting his physiological statistics.” 

“ _Send them over to me. I’ll open up a line of safe communication-“_

“I think we should wait on that, Stane.” 

“ _Are you kidding me? Why?”_

“Let me see this through first. Finish the process. He’s been through the initial bite but may still need boosters to keep him healthy. I think the rapid alteration of his DNA spiked his metabolism-“ 

“ _I_   _couldn’t give a damn about his metabolism. I want to see the results of my current project.”_

“We’re in the endgame now. I’ll send the results when he’s complete.” 

“ _They better be fucking impressive.”_

The line went dead. Raza chucked the phone on his cot and ran a hand over his head. The heat was stifling within the canvas walls of his tent, shielding him from the sun but blocking any breeze. Choosing to go bald, while not being his best look, in his opinion, had proven to be incredibly useful combating the desert heat. 

One of Raza’s operatives had nabbed the Parker boy from New York City about a month after Stark’s initial accident, the one that landed him with shrapnel within his thoracic cavity. They’d kept him separated and isolated for several weeks. Children, while already weak, were almost completely useless to themselves when in an unfamiliar environment, not to mention completely alone. Peter had been harder to break than expected, but not impossible. No one was impossible. That had been proven to Raza several times over in many different situations. 

Peter Parker had been a tacked-on task assigned by Obadiah, another branch of their current agreement. 

“ _This company needs something big,”_ Obadiah had said to him. “ _Weapons are good and dandy but we’ve gotta branch out. Only issue is that these boardroom assholes aren’t willing to take the necessary risks.”_

Stane, in a moment of surprising honesty, went on to explain how he had connections at a scientific research company called Oscorp. Raza had never heard of it, but listened nonetheless as Obadiah gushed about the possibilities of what their work could do. 

“ _Super soldiers, Raza. This is big!”_

Raza remembered the gusto in his voice, could never forget how excited he sounded as he explained that their research regarding the integration of arachnid DNA into the human genome could create an entire population of enhanced individuals. 

There was only one issue; Oscorp’s research was minimal, superficial. They hadn’t truly run enough numbers to initiate any sort of experimentation, much less on humans. Raza had a feeling the existence of the project itself was a secret, maybe even a rumor conjured up by whoever Stane’s connection within the company was. No business in its right mind would endorse such experimentation. The risks were too high, the concept too vague. There were too many variables in the equation. The plan would likely never be anything more than speculation and theories, far-fetched ideas of a human with spider-like abilities. 

“ _What do you think the US Military would pay for a soldier like that, huh? We’d be rich. Both of us, if you’re willing to help.”_

Stane, to put things simply, was an idiot. He may have been an okay businessman within his own company, but Raza knew his intelligence wasn’t exactly off-the-charts. He didn’t know what he was talking about, or if these proposed experiments would even work. The science behind them was shaky at best and he was none the wiser. He was like a child wishing for a puppy; he loved the idea of it, but once he’d obtained it, he wouldn’t know how to properly take care of it. 

Obadiah swore upon his life that he had the means to conduct the research from a scientific standpoint; he simply needed a place to do it. Somewhere Stark Industries, Oscorp, and the US government wouldn’t think to look. Raza’s reward would be profits from the selling of the super soldier formula itself and a smaller up-front payment. It was a long haul project but could admittedly be vital to the financial stability of the Ten Rings. And Raza himself, of course. 

“I’d have to start gathering test subjects-“ 

“ _No. My connection said there’s only one that will work for the first trial. I’ll give you a name and location, but it’s on you to get someone over there to retrieve him.”_

“Now you’re asking me to send an operative out of the country, _kidnap someone,_ and somehow sneak him back here. This is getting increasingly complicated, Obadiah.” 

“ _I know, I know. I’m not quite sure why we need this specific kid but my friend says with the materials they have at the moment, he’s the only one that-“_

“It’s a child? This is going to be near impossible! Are you out of your _mind_?” 

“ _We’ll get it figured out. Are you in or not?”_

Raza had literally no reason to accept this challenge except for the money, some of which was currently theoretical. He’d be an idiot to go along with this. 

But somewhere deep within him, the sick, childlike part of him that still existed somewhere, wanted to see how it would play out. A super soldier with powers equivalent to the abilities of a spider? _That_ could be useful to more than just Stark Industries. 

So against his better judgement and the warnings of the voices in his head, Raza agreed to the deal. 

Obadiah has been true to his word and coordinated the boy’s transport, chartering private planes and on-ground transportation to get him to base camp. The necessary materials and research information from Oscorp had been sent over as well. A team of specially selected scientists (some prisoners and some allies) were instructed to educate themselves on the subject and conduct the experiment to the best of their abilities. 

Raza had thought they’d failed, at first. Peter’s condition was rocky for the first few days after the bite. Bunking him up with Stark and Ho Yinsen had also been a risk, but a necessary one. While the camp’s scientists were competent enough to complete the initial first steps of the trial, Yinsen was the only medical doctor currently on-sight. He’d be best equipped to take care of Parker if things started going south. 

But they didn’t. Peter regressed at first, yes, but then began showing increasingly promising results as time went on. The fact that he was alive in itself was a miracle, the still-developing super strength and, if Raza’s observations were correct, enhanced senses, simply added bonuses. Some of the scientists had even said they expected more abilities to arise over time. 

Of course all of these enhancements would mean Peter would become progressively harder to handle, but Raza had planned for that. He’d lull him into a false sense of comfort, of security. Raza wasn’t blind to the fact that right now, Parker had two of the most stubborn men he’d ever met wrapped around his little finger. They cared for him. If that wasn’t the case, his time in the cave would already have been much worse than it was. 

The key would be to keep Peter on his toes, keep him guessing and waiting for punishment or freedom that may or may not ever come. He may have the strength of a hundred men, but that could be overcome if he was constantly ridden with unease and fear. The mind is a fickle thing. Enough prodding in the form of, say, hours of sun exposure while holding a ridiculously large piece of metal, among other things, could subdue _anyone’s_ rebellious streak enough to keep them in line. 

Long after Tony Stark was dead, Raza would continue the trials. They’d glean everything they could from Peter Parker’s physiology and then dispose of him as well, if it was deemed necessary . Raza didn’t quite understand the science behind all of it, why the experiments would only work with certain people and certain spiders, but he didn’t _need_ to know. His scientists would figure it out, piece it together until they had something close to a long-term plan. 

And Raza, as well as the Ten Rings, would have an army of soldiers just like Peter Parker. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so so sorry this took so long. If I’m being honest, I was really just more focused on my other fics for a while and pushed this one to the back burner. But now we’ve finally got some action and a little bit of backstory! Things are moving along :)
> 
> Also, I think I’m going to start adding trigger warnings when particularly heavy chapters come along. I think we’re okay for right now, but you may see some warnings in the future.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This comes in at exactly 6002 words. It’s a lengthy one. Buckle up.

“There’s more than usual! And- oh my god, I think there’s actual meat in here.” 

Peter continued staring into the box, just recently dropped off by one of their captors. His, Tony’s, and Yinsen’s meals rarely carried any sort of variety; beans and rice were major staples. The beans were always canned, the rice switching between brown and white and never pre-boiled. Today, though, they’d gotten a box unusually full of an assortment of different foods. There were the usual canned beans, but among those were plastic-packaged saltine crackers, a few pieces of bread. A few of the boxes said spaghetti, others beef stew. Peter thought he may have seen the word “cookie” on something, and was so surprised he just about dropped the box. 

Yinsen walked over to where Peter had set the package and peered inside. His glasses slid to the end of his nose, and he didn’t bother readjusting them. “There’s a note written on the back of one.” 

He nabbed a packet of vacuum-sealed saltine crackers and held them up to his face. “It’s in Hungarian. Of course it is.  _ ‘A reward for your cooperation. You have two more weeks to finish the missile _ ’.”

Tony, who had been working on something he wouldn’t tell Peter about for most of the day, suddenly stopped moving. “We’ve only got  _ two weeks?  _ My calculations allowed for way more completion time! I’m going to have to reconfigure  _ everything.”  _

Yinsen tossed the saltine crackers aside, and Peter caught them before they landed in the box. The packet was instantly torn open, Peter munching on its contents before Yinsen could say anything.  “Sorry,” he said through a mouth full of food, deflating a little at Tony’s raised eyebrow. 

“I’m not mad that you’re eating, kid. I’m mad that you’re not sharing. Hand something over.” 

Peter stuck his hand into the box and wrapped his fingers around the first package they touched. “Catch,” he said, sending a small package of dried strawberries through the air. Tony caught it without much focus and began shoveling the fruit into his mouth. “I’m going to really have to speed up my timetable. The chest piece was supposed to take a week in itself, and now I’ve got to get it hammered out in a matter of days.” 

Peter’s hand stalled on the way to his mouth, saltine cracker dangling in the air.  _ Breastplate?  _

“You could always tell Peter and I what you’re doing, you know. We could help.” 

“You have been helping,” Tony countered. 

“Telling me which wires to connect on a circuit board isn’t helping. Not really.” 

“And I don’t think me heating up dinner every night is really helpful, either,” Peter interjected. If he was being honest with himself, he was flat-out tired of feeling so useless. The last several days had consisted of minimal conversation and lots of banging noises coming from Tony’s workbench. Yinsen seemed to be harboring his own frustrations as well; he’d always let out a little huff of air or blink extra long when Tony refused to reveal what exactly he was doing. Not being able to participate in the creation of what was supposed to be their escape plan had both Peter and Yinsen at the end of their ropes. 

Tony looked surprised when Peter approached his workbench, shoulders hunched with timidity but eyes determined. “Please, Mr.Stark. We can be useful. Let us help.” 

The intensity of Stark’s gaze had always been intimidating to Peter. Even when he was joking, Tony’s dark eyes had an essence of complete and utter truth to them. He may disguise his inner feelings well, hide what exactly he’s thinking behind a guise of confidence and snark, but the heaviness of his stare always gave him away. 

The way he was looking at Peter now...He wasn’t angry, or upset, or anything of the sort. He was  _ afraid.  _ Afraid of the possible repercussions of Peter and Yinsen knowing his plans. Afraid of the pain Baldie and his friends would inflict upon them if they ever found out about the potential escape. 

But there was resolve mixed in with the fear, too. Peter knew Tony was well aware of his own physical limitations. There was only so much one man could accomplish in two weeks. If his plan had any chance of success, he’d need assistance. 

Yinsen placed a hand slowly on Tony’s shoulder, and Stark finally broke eye contact. The baggie of dried strawberries in his hand was suddenly the most interesting thing in the room. “I’ll give each of you half of the plan. If you figure the rest out on your own, great. If not, fine. Regardless, I’m not telling either of you everything.” He coughed. “That way neither one of you will know enough to-“ The rest of his sentence went unsaid, but Peter got the gist.  _ That way neither one of you will know enough to make you a bigger target than  _ me. 

Yinsen smiled and squeezed Stark’s shoulder before pulling away. “Thank you. For trusting us.” 

Mr.Stark shrugged. “I didn’t have much of a choice.” He stared at his dried strawberries for a few more seconds, then set the package down on his workbench quickly, as if he’d been burned. 

Peter motioned to the abandoned baggie. “What, you’re done? Don’t tell me you’re not hungry, Mr. Stark. We’re all hungry.” 

He shook his head. “No. I just - I think - these are MREs.” 

Yinsen nodded. “Yes. Meals ready to eat. What about them?”   

Tony swallowed thickly, as if the strawberries he’d eaten were making him sick. “ _ American  _ MREs. I recognize the packaging. These were stacked in crates back at the military base.” 

“So they were taken from the Americans?” Yinsen asked. 

“Yeah. Either taken by force or pillaged from attack sights. Left over from bomb raids.” 

Peter set his pack of crackers down and wiped the crumbs from his hands. He’d been excited for the new snacks before, but now he couldn’t help picturing American soldiers laying down their lives for the sake of Peter having a cookie for the first time in months. He suddenly lost his usually insatiable appetite. 

“Alright, Mr. Stark. Fill us in. If we’ve only got two weeks, we better get working.” 

* * *

 

Despite the time constraints, Tony found himself occasionally losing focus and watching Peter work. The kid was  _ smart.  _  Breathtakingly so. 

Tony had told Peter his half of the plan, providing every necessary detail that he’d need to do his part. Tony figured most of the technical terminology would go right over the kid’s head, but he actually seemed to be following along. At one point, Tony had stopped his instructions to explain a particularly tricky piece of the physics behind the project. Peter just smiled and said, “Yeah, I know how it works. You can skip the explanation. If you want to skip it, I mean. I’m happy to listen if you-“ 

Tony chuckled. “If you think you’ve got it, you’ve got it. I’m not going to talk more than necessary.” 

Yinsen had plenty of expertise, more than enough to do his part. Obviously. 

Tony had met very few people with enough scientific knowledge to rival his own. Being the smartest person in any given room had simply become normal for him, a daily occurrence that, if he was being honest with himself, he was rather proud of. 

Tony’s pride really took a hit when he realized someone as smart as him, maybe even surpassing him in intelligence, had saved his life after he’d almost died at the hands of his own invention. He’d felt helpless. Weak. Maybe a little ashamed. 

Hopefully Yinsen hadn’t taken the backlash from those feelings too personally. Tony was well aware of how he’d acted after he woke up with the magnet in his chest. He’d been childish. There was no other way to put it. He wasn’t beating himself up over it  _ too  _ much; after all, he’d woken up in an unknown location after going through a major surgery. Fear and pain are strong agitators. But Yin definitely hadn’t deserved Tony’s short temper or constant complaining. 

Yinsen had never been rude in return. Just constantly reminded Tony that they both had families to get home to. (Though, Tony was about twenty years past having any blood-related family to spend time with.) (But he wouldn’t mind seeing Happy again.)(And Pepper. He missed Pepper.) (Maybe even Obadiah.)

So, for the sake of returning to his make-shift family, Tony kept working. He assumed Yinsen and Peter had the same motivations.

“Uh, Mr. Stark?” Peter’s hands had stilled over the motherboard he was assembling. Tony tried to keep his jaw from dropping when he noticed that the wiring was done  _ perfectly,  _ not a connection out of place. 

“Yea, kid?”

“I know we’ve got a seemingly normal sleep schedule going, and I guess that’s our way of telling time, sort of, and there’s those lights in the hallway that I saw a while ago, but-”

“Peter. Wrap it up. Work to do.”

“Right, right. Sorry. Basically, none of us have any accurate sense of time here. How will we know when it’s been two weeks?”

Yinsen shrugged. “When they come knocking, I guess.”

Tony...Tony hadn’t thought about that. He had a rough estimate of how long he’d been gone, but he’d lost track of the days ages ago. He slept when he felt like he needed it. He’d tried using the lights in the hallway to count days for a while; they’d occasionally switch off for several hours at a time, and he’d just assumed it was a way for the terrorists working within the caverns to keep track of day and night. He gave up when the terrorists caught wind of his methods (they probably just watched the cave security footage and realized Tony was opening the door’s peephole several times an hour)  and just started leaving them on. They’d begun switching them off again recently, but he’d gone without them long enough that any sort of mental calendar he ever had going was now in complete shambles. 

Yinsen’s response didn’t seem to comfort Peter any. Tony could see him swallow, his eyes making their way toward the floor and staying there. “Yeah. When they come knocking.”

Peter turned back toward the workbench.  _ Do something,  _ Yinsen mouthed behind his back. 

Tony’s shoulders shot toward his ears and he threw his hands in the air. He didn’t mouth anything back, but Yinsen seemed to interpret his body language correctly.  _ What the hell am I supposed to do? _

Yinsen gave a shrug of his own.  _ I don’t know, comfort him?  _

Tony blinked a few times.  _ How do I do that?  _

Yinsen just rolled his eyes. To Tony’s surprise, he pulled a package of “Just Add Water Beef Stew” from the box of food the terrorists brought, and made his way to the water basin. 

“You’re actually going to eat that?” Tony asked. His question caught Peter’s attention and the boy looked back and forth between Yinsen and Tony. It was evident that he was trying to find out who was in the wrong in this situation. 

Yinsen ladled some warm water from the cooking pot into the beef stew package and began stirring it with one of the trio’s only eating utensils, a small, bent, tarnished spoon. “While it may have been obtained through less than pleasant methods, Stark, I cannot let it sit uselessly. We both know this sort of thing is hard to come by here.” He didn’t just mean the dry cookies or fun little packages of saltine crackers. The hollowness of his cheeks, the deep set of his eyes, all of his traits seemed to point toward him not having enough food for a long while. 

Peter’s stomach audibly growled. He gave a sheepish smile, seemingly betrayed by his own digestive system. 

Tony put a hand on his shoulder. “Nobody’s going to judge you for eating, Pete. You’re going to need some food if we want to get out of here.” 

Some sort of weight was visibly lifted from Peter’s shoulders, and he dug through the food box until he found something he wanted. Him and Yinsen ate in silence while Tony returned to his workbench. As hungry as he was, as he had been for the last several months, he couldn’t bring himself to eat any of the MREs. Just looking at the box that contained them brought mental images of the soldiers he’d ridden with in the Hum-V, the ones that lost their lives trying to protect him. 

He didn’t judge Yinsen or Peter for succumbing to their hunger. Peter was  _ always  _ hungry and had been looking more than famished in recent days. And Yin has been stuck with the terrorists long enough to deserve a decent meal. Both man and teenager deserved the food. 

Tony, though, did not. 

Several hours and empty MRE packages later, the three of them had gotten the main wiring done. A few more days and the project Tony had been pouring his sweat and tears into for probably the last several weeks (maybe months, he didn’t know), would be complete. 

“Don’t you think we should do a test fit, Tony? Before we go any farther? The more delicate wiring will be harder to re-do if we find a structural error later on.” 

“Yea, good plan Yin. Let’s try it out. Wanna grab the boots for me Pete?” 

The next several hours were a whirlwind of metal plates and wiring, wrenches and bolts. The boots were perfect, but felt heavier than Tony expected them to be. The chest plate was too large around the biceps, so Tony had to have Peter bend the edges to the correct size with that freaky strength of his. 

Tony hadn’t realized how much weight he’d lost in the last few months. He knew he was on the skinnier side at the moment, but for his calculations to be that off...It was startling. He’d memorized his tailoring measurements, their numbers as familiar as the lines of his palms thanks to years of suit fittings. To see those numbers, the numbers that had been roughly the same since he was a teenager, change so drastically, put a pit in his stomach. 

Maybe he’d changed more than he thought. In more ways than one. 

Peter was bolting a shin guard to a knee joint when he tensed suddenly, hand frozen and wrapped so tightly around his wrench that his knuckles were going white. “There’s someone coming.” 

“ _Shit,_ are you serious? I don’t have time to get out of this thing-“ 

“How many?” Yinsen asked. 

“I don’t know. More than one or two, definitely.” 

“And how far away?” 

Peter’s head tilted in the direction of the door. He reminded Tony of a curious golden retriever. 

“Still a few hallways over. Walking fast, but not running. We probably have a minute or two.” 

Tony’s mind was spinning a mile a minute. There was nowhere for him to hide with this thing on, and there’s no way he’d even be able to move in it unless they completed the main framework wiring and got the hydraulic systems working. 

Yinsen was looking at Tony now. “Stark. Is the suit finished?” 

Tony didn’t miss the “finished  _ enough _ ” that Yin silently tacked onto the end. Tony had gotten good at reading him in the last few months. That’s why he was able to translate the hard set of Yinsen’s lips, the fire behind his glasses. He was asking,  _ Stay and get caught, or fight with what we’ve got?  _

Tony took a deep breath to ground himself. He focused on the weight of his gauntlets, the places where cold metal slipped over the edges of his gloves and touched his wrists. The stale air of the cave and how he wouldn’t mind never, ever inhaling it again. How Yinsen has a family to get home to. How Peter had a family, and friends, and a school he was probably missing. 

“Finished enough. Gear up boys, we’re leaving.  _ Today.”  _

* * *

 

The shaking of Peter’s hands was making wiring the bomb very, very difficult. 

Mr.Stark had managed to think up a quick and dirty plan to jumpstart their escape. 

_ “We’ve gotta get ahead of em’, _ ” he’d said,  _ “so that means we’ve gotta do something they won’t expect.”  _

Peter had to agree with his way of thinking; bombs were, in most cases, unexpected. 

He was really surprised Stark had trusted him with explosives. More than just explosives, really. They’d pulled the discarded, unused core from the damaged Jericho missile. Peter was responsible for making sure the second someone opened the cave door, the core blew them to high heaven. 

He had the knowledge to make it work. Chemistry was his thing. It would work. It would definitely work. 

So why was his heart threatening to burst through his sternum? 

“How long until they’re here?” Yinsen asked, hands flying around Tony as he tightened bolts, connected wires, readjusted joints. It was quick and maybe even sloppy work, but it would hold. It had to. Just until they could all escape. 

Wasting as little time as possible, Peter tilted his head towards the door. “Like, ten seconds. Maybe fifteen if they knock first.” 

Yinsen stepped back and looked Tony over, admiring his work. “They usually skip the pleasantries. Is it ready, Peter?” 

“Yes sir.” 

“And you remember the route?” 

Yes, Peter remembered the route to the mouth of the cave. Tony and Yinsen had made him memorize it weeks ago, just in case. That’s the sort of information you didn’t just forget. “Yeah, I remember.” 

“Alright Yin, hit f1 on the keyboard. We gotta get going on this  _ now.  _ Yes, f1. Left corner. There! Good. Now hit enter.” 

Someone banged on the cave door, and the sound echoed around the room. Peter had been too distracted to hear their approach. 

“Hit enter, Yinsen!” 

A beep came from the computer, and he knew the software than ran Tony’s creation was uploading itself. 

“We need more time,” Tony needlessly pointed out. “What’s that progress bar at, Yin?” 

Yinsen peered at the computer screen through the dirty lenses of his glasses. “About half.” 

The terrorists banged on the door again, now shouting in an unfamiliar language. Yinsen didn’t bother translating or shouting back. 

Peter heard a mechanical whirring. Tony was leaving his corner. “Peter. Go stand in that alcove over there. Stay out of the way. Both of you wait for my signal.” 

“But Mr.Stark, what’s the signal?” 

Stark gave a wry smile and aimed his repulsor at the bomb wired to the door. A high-pitched whine filled the air. “You’ll know.” 

The room exploded in a cacophony of smoke and noise. His bomb had worked; bits of rock fell from the ceiling as the cave doors blew outward. Peter was having a hard time discerning which noises were coming from where, but he was fairly sure he’d heard shouting and then some grunting as the rebels outside the door were thrown backward from the blast. 

Peter had been distracted by the commotion long enough to warrant a jab in the ribs from Yinsen. “ _ Go!”  _ the doctor shouted. “ _ They’re distracted!”  _

So. Yinsen was the signal. Of course. 

It was difficult to ignore Tony as he stomped his way through the now open doorway. Peter and Yinsen leaving him behind just felt wrong, like they’d be permanently losing one of their own. 

But Tony was tough. His idea was fanatical and a little bit risky, but solid enough. It would hold. It had to. 

Yinsen kept a hand on Peter’s back as the two of them sprinted through the commotion. The air was heavy with smoke. Peter’s eyes watered, blurring the twisting passageways of the cave in front of him. He remembered the route, recognized this right turn and that left turn and this weird curvy hallway from the map he’d spent weeks pouring over. He could practically see the route lined in red every time he blinked. The occasional barrages of gunfire threw him off, though, sending pangs of worry and fear through his skull. 

A particularly loud boom sounded somewhere behind them, and Peter flinched. His ears were ringing. Something warm was running down the side of his cheek and dripping off of his jaw. He didn’t take the time to see what it was, just let it keep flowing and make its way onto the collar of his shirt. 

“There’s a communal space coming up,” Yinsen shouted. “They will have men stationed there to intercept us. Be prepared to fight if necessary.” 

The ceiling above them heightened suddenly, and they busted out of their tunnel into a new room. Yinsen was yelling something over the noise. Peter wasn’t paying attention to his words, really. Just watching Yinsen’s lips move. He was stuck in his own mind; a shiver had just run down his spine, sending the hairs on the back of his neck upward. Something didn’t feel right. Something was coming, and- 

Peter was ducking, suddenly, bent so low that one of his knees was almost touching the ground. The other leg was stretched out beside him, keeping him balanced. The fingers of his right hand were splayed in front of him on the ground, and his left elbow was bent and ready to block any attacks from behind. 

_ When have I  _ ever  _ put myself in this stance? I feel like an idiot.  _

“Fucking _ dolt,  _ I said shoot to incapacitate, not  _ kill!”  _

“That would have been a kill shot if the kid hadn’t moved, Raza!” 

It took Peter several seconds to work up the courage to look at his attackers. There were several men in the room. All held make-shift weapons of some sort: a hammer, a blowtorch, a wicked looking machete, a knife. Surprisingly, only one had anything powerful. The one closest to Peter looked sort of frightened, the gun in his hands aimed at the floor. 

The one who’s been called Raza let loose something close to a growl. “You’re supposed to be better than a child! Oh my god, you’re useless. Give it to me!” 

Peter eventually recognized the one in charge as Baldie, the man that almost forced Dr.Yinsen’s face into a lit forge, all so Tony would build the Jericho missile. He hadn’t thought about Baldie, or  _ Raza,  _ apparently, for weeks. Not since that day with the forge, at least. He made a conscious effort to block out all of the traumatizing moments from the last several months. That included pretty much any time Raza showed up. 

There was a thundering boom somewhere behind Peter and Yinsen, back through the tunnel where they’d just come from. On any given day Yinsen wasn't exactly a man of many words, but he was being surprisingly quiet. Peter wanted to turn around and look for the source of the noise, not to mention check on Yinsen, but he couldn’t work up the nerve to take his eyes off Raza. The gun in Raza’s hands. 

But Raza wasn’t looking at Peter. His eyes were trained on the tunnel. 

The sound of clanking metal quickly grew louder, the noise grating Peter’s nerves. His hearing was particularly sensitive at the moment for reasons unbeknownst to him. The last several minutes of echoes and blasts were taking a toll. Peter’s head was pounding behind his eyes. 

Peter watched with his mouth agape as Mr.Stark lumbered into the room. Stark’s original description of the suit had been impressive, if not a little far-fetched. This was the first time Peter had seen the suit completely put together, though, and it was nothing short of terrifying. 

The suit pushed Mr.Stark’s height up by several feet, so he towered above everyone else in the room. An assortment of expertly welded metal sheets curved wickedly around his arms and legs, gauntlets made of the same material encasing his hands.

The helm unsettled Peter most. There was no light behind the harshly angled eye sockets, but they carried a sort of liveliness only Mr.Stark could give to an inanimate object. The arc reactor glowed within the chest piece. It’s blue light was almost calming. A familiar symbol in a room full of oddities. 

“Step back,” Stark said, raising one of his gauntlets toward Raza. 

Raza raised the gun and Peter flinched. “Really? You think your silly suit of armor can protect you?” 

The helm dipped as Tony observed his own body. He ran his free hand over the bullet dents that managed to land dangerously close to the arc reactor. “Yea, I do. So I’m not going to say it again.  _ Step back.  _ Let us pass.” 

Raza seemed to contemplate the offer. “Alright. I won’t hinder your escape.” 

Raza stepped backward. 

“Wait, seriously?” 

Raza roller his eyes. “Of course not, Stark. I’m no idiot.” 

That chilly feeling stuck to the back of Peter’s neck again. This time, the hair on his arms stood on end. 

Peter’s chin smacked the cave floor as Tony swatted him down, his teeth biting his tongue painfully. There was an almost unbearable blast of heat that seemed to go on for ages. Someone screamed. Several someones screamed. Then the heat stopped, and the screaming was replaced with moans and pleas for mercy. 

Peter’s shirt was plastered to his chest. At first he thought it was just sweat, but when he picked up an arm to wipe at his chin, he realized he was lying in something sticky. It wasn’t water. Too thick to be water. Peter followed the trail from his clothes to the floor, all the way to the doctor slumped over a stack of rice sacks. 

“D-Dr.Yinsen?” 

“ _Peter.”_ Yinsen’s voice was barely more than a whisper. His glasses were broken. They sat crooked on the bridge of his nose, one of the lenses cracked in the middle. 

“Yinsen, no,  _ wait,  _ you can’t-“

Yinsen weakly wrapped his hand around Peter’s wrist, tried to pull it away from the quickly spreading patch of red on his own chest. “It’s okay, Peter.” 

“No, Stop! You have to get up!” 

“You’re hurting him, Kid.” 

Peter didn’t notice he was pressing down on Yinsen’s wound, didn’t notice the wince on Yinsen’s face, until Mr.Stark’s metal-encased hand squeezed his shoulder and pulled him away. 

Tony kneeled before the doctor, his guard temporarily down. “Yin. C’mon buddy, we gotta get moving. These guys are down, but more are coming to take their place. We gotta beat the wave.” 

“I’m staying right here.” 

Mr.Stark shook his head. “What about that family of yours? Don’t you wanna get back to them?” 

_ Huh.  _ Peter didn’t know Yinsen had a family.

Yinsen managed a smile, and something within Peter’s chest shattered. “This is how I get back to them, Stark. I’m going to see my family again.” 

The faceplate of Stark’s armor conveyed no emotion, but his silence ensured Peter that the billionaire playboy philanthropist beneath all of that iron was going through his own sort of death. The loss of a friend. 

“Go, Stark. Take the boy and go. You haven’t got much time.” 

Yinsen turned toward Peter. “Commend your aunt for her spectacular child-rearing skills, Peter. It’s been a pleasure getting to know you these last few weeks.” 

One of the terrorists lying on the cave floor groaned. Peter ignored him. 

He so desperately wanted to say something,  _ anything,  _ to express his gratitude for everything Yinsen had done for him. For healing him, for comforting him. For keeping his head on straight. 

A pitiful “Thank you,” was all Peter could muster. 

Yinsen nodded like he understood. Like he could see every bit of regret and despair and respect in Peter’s eyes. 

“Go,” he said, one last time. 

Peter tilted his head toward the tunnel. “They’re coming, Mr.Stark. A group of them.” 

As Stark stood, Peter noted how he did absolutely everything he could to not look at the men on the floor. “Stay behind me. I don’t mean a loose follow, I mean  _ behind me _ . They’re not going to let us go easily.” 

“Yes sir.” 

Tony walked to the doorway at the other end of the room. “Please, don’t call me that.” 

Just as Peter was about to walk out, about to leave Yinsen and everything he’d gotten to know for the last few months, he took one last glance over his shoulder. 

Rice sacks covered in blood. Men on the ground. Burned flesh. Heavy breathing. Crying, maybe, but he didn’t know who it was coming from. 

Yinsen, surrounded by red. Covered in red. Peter couldn’t tell if he was still breathing or not, didn’t want to. 

He steeled himself for the journey ahead, turned on his heel, and followed Stark out of the cave and into the blinding sunlight. 

* * *

 

The gunfire started as soon as Tony and Peter made it to the cave mouth. The terrorists in the small village outside the cave didn’t know what they were shooting at, really. They just knew it was big and scary and shooting fire, and that they should probably take it down as quickly as possible. 

“Stay back!” Tony shouted, not really knowing or caring whether Peter could hear him. He had to say it, though. To feel like he was doing something to protect the boy. 

Peter should have had his own suit of armor. He was much too exposed. Not to mention the fact that Tony’s suit was strong and durable, but quickly taking damage. It’s overall integrity was currently at 37%, if the green numbers flashing in the corner of his vision were accurate. 

Who was he kidding? Of course they were accurate. Yinsen had done the coding for them. 

_ Yinsen. Oh god, Yinsen is- _

Tony slammed a mental door on his quickly intensifying emotions. He didn’t have time to panic. He would mourn Yinsen; his friend, his brother. Just not now. Now was his chance to escape. 

Tony shot another gust of fire from his gauntlets, this time setting a stack of wooden pallets in the shape of a small hut ablaze. Those handy little numbers in his viewfinder were telling him he was also low on fuel, which was really really not good, because the gauntlets and the boot jets were connected to the same fuel tank. If Tony wanted to get himself and Peter far enough away from the terrorist campsite to be safe, he’d have to stop using his flamethrowers. Going on offense was the last thing he wanted to do with the shape his suit was in, but he didn’t have much of a choice. 

Weighing his options, Tony decided it was time to bolt before the terrorists got themselves together and him and the kid were overwhelmed. Peter must have actually listened when Tony said to stay close, because he was near enough to hear Tony holler, “We’re leaving! On three, okay? One, two, three!” 

Tony stuck his arms beneath Peter’s armpits and up around his shoulders, quickly and maybe a bit too forcefully tugging him off of the ground and into the sky. Tony kept his back to the rebel camp as long as possible and made sure Peter’s thin frame was completely shielded by his own armor. He didn’t even think about relaxing until the sound of gunshots faded from range, and the sandy desert beneath them showed no signs of human life. 

“M-Mr.Stark?” 

“Yea, kid?” 

“Did we actually just do that?” 

Despite the midday sun turning Tony’s suit into a sauna, despite the trembling child in his arms, despite the friend he left behind, the months lost to torture and darkness and stone, despite the sweat, tears, and pain, Tony smiled. 

“We  _ actually  _ just did that.” 

Something beeped inside of Tony’s helm. He watched with horror as the “remaining fuel” gauge dropped to a flat 0. 

“We’re about to lose some serious altitude. This is going to be a rough landing, so just hold on.” 

“What do you mean? What’s-  _ Oh shit!”  _

Tony felt the same way. His stomach was definitely saying  _ oh shit  _ as the suit’s boot thrusters failed, and him and Peter began a swan dive toward the desert floor. 

Peter was small from months of under-eating, so it wasn’t hard for Stark to wrap his own body around him tightly as he braced them both for impact. He had to make sure Peter landed on top of him and not the other way around, or the kid would be crushed by the suit and would end up a pile of organ jelly splattered across the sand. 

“Go limp!” Tony remembered to say, “If you’re tense, you’re more likely to get hu-“ 

The rest of his words fell into oblivion as wind turned to solid matter and his breath was firmly knocked out of him. The air left his chest in a mighty puff, and he could hear himself wheezing as he lay atop the sand. 

Peter. Where was Peter? 

Tony’s eyes were watering as a result of the tightness in his chest, but he blinked through the tears and scanned his surroundings. 

The suit was in shambles, pieces of it scattered around him in a wide circle as if he were the sun and his chest plate, helm, and gauntlets were planets. All of it was smoking like steak fresh off of a hot grill. 

“M-Mr.Stark?” 

Peter was suddenly stumbling his was toward Tony. His worn sneakers didn’t give him much purchase in the sand, and he tripped several times before Tony met him halfway. 

“Kid! You okay? Anything broken?” 

“I-I don’t know, Mr.Stark, but there’s a ton of sand in my eyes and it  _ really  _ hurts.”

Tony had no water to rinse Peter’s eyes,  _ or to drink,  _ he reminded himself, so he shook out his own shirt as well as he could and ran it across Peter’s face. “Alright, here we go. Okay. There. Any better?” 

Peter blinked a few times and continued rubbing his eyes. “Yea, maybe. Thanks.” 

Tony could tell he was lying. But, there wasn’t really anything that could be done for him at the moment, so he let it slide. Sandy eyes were better than broken bones. Or decapitation via a dramatic, high-speed fall from the sky. 

A breeze ruffled Tony’s sweat soaked hair, but it wasn’t comforting. It carried with it a dry sensation, irritating his skin more than cooling it. 

Peter’s cheeks were flushed a rosy red. He was already fair skinned; Tony knew he’d be burnt to hell within the hour. All he had with him were the clothes Tony first saw him in: worn jeans, a t-shirt, an old hoodie. The front of the shirt, despite Peter’s best attempts at hand washing it, still had a few original rust- colored blood stains from all those weeks ago. Some new ones had appeared as well, which Tony didn’t like one bit. 

Peter was rubbing the back of his neck, like maybe that was burning too. His hair had really grown over the last few weeks. The ends curled around the tops of his ears and grazed the back of his shirt collar, meaning his neck was relatively protected. Maybe the sun wasn’t the only thing bothering him. 

The two of them had been walking for so long that Tony startled when Peter finally decided to speak. 

“Mr.Stark?” 

“Yea, kid?” 

Peter ran his tongue over his chapped lips. He was standing still at the moment, but favoring his left leg. Tony noticed he’d begun limping awhile back. Of course he hadn’t said anything about it. He probably didn’t want Tony to worry. 

“How long do you think we’ll be out here?” 

The sun was high in the sky. If Tony has to guess, it was probably noon or a little after. His stomach was growling. He could only assume Peter was as famished as him, if not more so. But they both had a long way to go before they’d be anywhere useful. 

“I don’t know.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so incredibly sorry this took so long. I’ve just started senior year of high school and finding time to do anything other than work or study is sort of difficult. 
> 
> But we made it, guys! We’re out of the cave! But now we’re wandering around the desert, which really sucks. 
> 
> Don’t worry, though. There’s a lot more coming for Tony and Peter. Just wait.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About 7900 words and quite a bit of POV switching. Very sorry. 
> 
> (There’s currently some formatting errors in this that may make the POV switches confusing. They’ll be fixed soon. Sorry about that.) 
> 
> And for those of you who may be confused, this story is loosely based around Iron Man 1, but it’s not set in that time period. Peter is 15, and MCU Peter was born in 2001, so just imagine this is 2016, and all of the Iron Man creation and reveal stuff happened around this time.

* * *

“You’re _sure_ the disturbance was southeast and not southwest, Colonel Rhodes? I could have sworn the General said southwest.” 

“I’m sure, MacLeod. The southwestern conflict was identified and handled days ago. You’re getting the two confused.” 

“Alright, Colonel.” 

Colonel James Rhodes was running out of patience. He’d gone from having an elite group of experienced soldiers, dedicated to finding his best friend, to having four largely unfocused Airmen at his side. 

That’s what happens when a high profile, influential American citizen goes missing over enemy lines. You get the best of the best; the choppers, the manpower. 

But when that high profile citizen is missing for three months and there’s been no ransom message or prisoner trade demands, most people assume the worst. The Up-Highs in charge of Rhodes started assuming the worst about a month ago, and his resources were cut significantly. 

Most people thought Tony Stark was a lost cause. That he’d either been killed already, or had escaped and would soon die from exposure to the elements. Rhodes was smarter than that. Tony was resourceful. He had to be alive.

So when Rhodes heard of a disturbance at a suspected rebel encampment southeast of the Base, he knew he had to check it out. Sadly the only support he’d be getting was from his dwindling search party, which consisted of one special-ops fellow named Regis who honestly scared Rhodey a bit, two Airmen, Smith and MacLeod, and a pilot, Rodriguez. The pilot was decent enough, but Rhodes almost couldn’t believe the Airmen made it through basic training. Not that they weren’t physically or mentally capable; both were stout and intelligent young men. The issue was that they had an attention span that only stretched as far as you could throw it. Maybe they knew they were on a bogus mission and just weren’t taking it seriously. Maybe they were just natural assholes. Either way, they got on James’s last nerve. 

“Keep your eyes peeled, guys. I know it’s a long shot, but there could be footprints, trash, clothes…”

_A body._

_God forbid._

Rhodes and his four companions couldn’t get too close to the rebel camp. They’d likely be shot out of the sky within seconds. The pilot started about a mile and a half out from the suspected camp location, just far enough away to not be spotted, but close enough to catch any stragglers (any stragglers being Tony) who may have managed to escape from the chaos. They extended outward in something close to a Fibonacci spiral after that, more or less doing extended circles away from the encampment. 

They’d been out for a few hours already and would have to head back to Base to refuel. That is, if the men in charge even let them leave Base twice in a day for what they deemed “a pointless waste of daylight and fuel.” 

“Colonel Rhodes, do you see that?” 

It was Rodriguez. He was pointing at a dark speck on the sand below the helicopter. 

“Yeah. Anyone able to tell what it is?”

“Whatever it is, there’s two of ‘em, sir,” MacLeod said from the back seat. 

“They’re definitely moving,” Smith added. 

Rhodes almost jumped when Regis spoke up; he hadn’t said a word the whole trip. “They’re waving. Possibly in need of help.” 

“Do we land, Colonel?” Rhodes almost didn’t realize Rodriguez was speaking to him. Sometimes it was hard for him to remember that he was in charge of this little group. 

“I’m taking opinions on this one, boys. What do you think?” 

“Four of us, two of them.” Regis cracked his knuckles like a girl twirled her hair; nonchalantly, like he didn’t even realize he was doing it. “They could need help. If they’re not Friendlies, we have the advantage.” 

“Unless they’re armed,” Smith pointed out. 

“ _We’re_ armed, dude,” MacLeod said back. 

James sighed and turned to Rodriguez. “Just land. If they’re Friendlies, we’ve gotta help them.” 

Rodriguez nodded. “Yes sir. Starting descent.”

Rhodes knew it was awful, but he almost just wanted to fly away. Keep looking for Tony. Stark was a serious lone wolf. If he escaped a terrorist base, he likely did it on his own. That meant there was a good chance that neither of the people currently below the helicopter were Tony. Unless he’d somehow made a friend during his incarceration, but James doubted it. 

Rhodes turned in the co-pilot’s seat to look back at Smith, MacLeod, and Regis. “If they’re hurt, help them to the best of your abilities. If they’re confrontational, don’t harm, just restrain. If they’re violent, just incapacitate. This isn’t the sort of situation where kill shots are our only option.” 

“Yes sir,” the three of them said in unison, beginning to gather their things and prepare for landing. 

Rodriguez was on the mic. They were close enough to the ground that the people beneath them would be able to hear them over the sound of the spinning helicopter blades. 

Rhodes put a hand on Rodriguez’s shoulder just before he could open his mouth. “If rebels are nearby, they might decide to ignore the sound of a helicopter. They _won’t_ ignore us announcing ourselves and saying we _come in peace._ Silent landing this time.” Rodriguez nodded and slipped the microphone back onto its hook. 

Rhodes watched as the two people below began backing up, arms over their faces to shield their eyes from the afternoon sun as well as to keep the sand being blown about by the helicopter off their faces. From inside the chopper Rhodey could tell it was two men, one shorter than the other and nursing a rather prominent limp. The other looked relatively okay; he had a shirt tied around his head so Rhodes couldn’t see much of his face, but if he wasn’t mistaken, he could have sworn there was something glowing in the man’s chest. A bright blue pendant of some sort. 

“Stay here, Rodriguez. Keep the bird running. We might have to make a quick getaway.” 

Rhodes undid his restraints and put his hand on the door latch. “Try and keep this peaceful, boys. Let’s go.” 

* * *

 

The lower portion of Peter’s left leg really, _really_ hurt. The pain had started directly after the crash, just as he smacked the sand at a ridiculously high velocity. Maybe he’d broken something. It sure _felt_ like he’d broken something. For his own sake, he really hoped that wasn’t the case. Trekking through the desert for any extended period of time was bad enough. Doing it with a broken foot would only make things worse. 

“You hangin’ in there, kid?” 

Mr. Stark had stopped and was looking back at Peter, obviously eyeing his left leg. Peter hadn’t realized he’d begun walking significantly slower than before. “Yea, I’m okay. What about you, Mr. Stark, are you alright?” 

Stark’s brow furrowed. He knew Peter was trying to change the subject, but he didn’t press the issue further. “Fine. Parched. Could really go for a margarita. A little sunburnt.” 

The toe of Peter’s shoe got caught in the sand and he stumbled, but Stark was already turned back around and didn’t see the incident. “Tie your shirt around your head so it blocks your face.” 

“I’m an idiot. Why didn’t I think of that?” 

“I was actually kidding more than anything...Oh, _oh,_ great look, sir, really great look.”

It was like looking at a roughed-up Little Bo Peep. Stark’s arc reactor, despite the smothering daylight, glowed through his undershirt. His overshirt, now wrapped over his head and tied beneath his chin, cast shadows over the upper half of his face. “Maybe you should do this with your hoodie. Might help. Your cheeks are looking a little rosy.”

Peter didn’t need to be _told_ he was sunburnt. He could feel it every time the collar of his shirt rubbed against his neck, or when he went to wipe sweat out of his eyes and accidentally grazed the sensitive skin of his forehead. His worn jeans were a blessing and a curse. His legs were shielded from the sun. Great. But denim was _not_ made for desert travel, and he thought his femurs would turn to jelly if his lower half got any hotter. 

But he couldn’t use his hoodie to shield his face, because it was currently holding up his pants. Peter was wearing the same jeans he’d had on when he was grabbed in New York. Pre-kidnap Peter wasn’t strong physically, and he was never really chunky, but he’d weighed a bit more than post-kidnap Peter. Post-kidnap Peter, despite his new muscle mass, had lost a significant amount of weight. More weight than he’d ever lost in such a short period of time. Peter had gotten a horrible case of the flu in the fifth grade. He lost six pounds in a week because he basically didn’t eat anything but chicken broth for three meals a day. 

The situations were similar in their own rights, except Peter had been living off of beans and rice this time around and did it for much longer than a week. Beans and rice weren’t exactly nutritional goldmines. Needless to say, Peter’s jeans didn’t fit anymore. If he didn’t keep his jacket tied around his waist, his pants would be at his ankles in seconds. 

“I’m fine. Only one of us is allowed to look like a shepherd, Mr. Stark, and you’ve already claimed the title.”

“Suit yourself. This feels great.”

“Except now your arms are going to burn.”

“Better than my face. That’s my money maker.”

Everyone, including Peter, knew that Tony’s moneymaker was inside of his head, not outside. Peter never would have thought he’d get so close to someone he admired. Most of Peter’s life, Tony Stark was like any other celebrity; always way past arm’s length, simply an icon of status and sophistication and brains that was completely unattainable. Just six months ago Peter would have given anything to be in the same room as Stark. Then they _had_ been put in the same room, and for several days, he thought Stark was a fever dream. Something his pain-stricken mind was conjuring to get him through the endless hours in the metal chair, all alone in a stone room full of artificial lighting and metal trays. Peter wasn’t in that room anymore, though. Mr.Stark _was there._ And Yinsen was there. He took care of Peter and treated him like a human being, something Peter hadn’t experienced in ages. He’d forgotten how much he missed human contact. He hadn’t needed a second person to have a two-sided conversation when he was in his chair. His subconscious was really good at giving him people to talk to. 

However sad it may be to admit, Peter almost missed the chair. Most of his time in the cave was punctuated with random periods of darkness, like he’d had memories to fill the spaces and his brain just hit File-Delete on all of them. The pain he could actually remember was beyond comprehension, and he’d never wish to go through that again, but at least he had interesting dreams when he hit his threshold and was inevitably knocked out. 

A lot of them were about his friends back home. Hanging out with them, playing video games, watching movies. He saw himself drinking hot chocolate with Ned on the fire escape last winter. He saw himself hand-in-hand with MJ, walking through Central Park. (That one wasn’t a memory. He hoped it might become one some day.) There was one especially odd dream in which he was forced to sit next to Flash Thompson in Physics, and Flash didn’t mess with him the entire period. Not one rude remark or snide comment. Peter had known that one was too good to be true from the start, but he enjoyed it nonetheless. 

He saw May sometimes, too. _God_ he missed May. A bowl of her shitty Mac n’ Cheese sounded amazing. As much as he wanted them, Peter didn’t need his video games or his phone or his closet full of science pun t-shirts that May didn’t understand but bought for him anyways. He needed _Golden Girls_ reruns with his aunt on the worn living room sofa. He wanted to plant his ass in the middle of the far right cushion, the one with the butt-shaped dent in it from excessive use over the years.

The most pleasant hallucinations of all, though, were the ones that involved Uncle Ben. 

It had been two years since Peter had seen Ben’s face. Heard his voice. Had seen him wearing something other than the silly sweater and blue jeans he’d been wearing in his casket. That memory was one of the ones Peter wished his brain would File-Delete, but he had a feeling it would be burned into the backs of his eyelids for the rest of his life. 

“ _They wanted to put him in something he’d wear on a normal day,”_ May had explained to Peter when he asked why Ben was being buried in his Sunday loafers. _“To make all of this seem less permanent, I guess.”_

 _“That’s stupid. He’s dead. That’s permanent.”_ Peter didn’t hate the outfit. He hated the bullet wound he knew was hidden beneath it, situated just beneath the sweater’s little brand emblem on Ben’s upper left chest. Peter was horribly familiar with it. He’d pressed his own hands over it, after all. But the blood had still flowed. 

Ben wasn’t wearing the sweater, jeans and loafers in Peter’s hallucinations. That’s why he liked them so much. Ben always appeared just as he had when he was alive; hair gelled back, thick glasses, a worn leather jacket and a smile on his face. Dream Uncle Ben took Peter to Yankees games and to the Queens Zoo just like the real Ben had. He cleaned Peter’s scraped knees when he was a toddler, mended his broken hearts as he found friends, lost friends, developed crushes, was inadvertently crushed by them. 

Peter didn’t know if the voice coming out of Ben’s mouth in his visions was how the man had really sounded. It had been too long for Peter to accurately recall the tone, the infliction of his words. It didn’t matter. Vision Ben looked like Real Ben. Peter knew that much. 

But Ben wasn’t back in that cave anymore. He never was. He was walking laps in the back of Peter’s memory. May, MJ, Ned, even Flash, all of them were back in Queens waiting for Peter to come home. And he’d get home to them. The last thing he wanted was for his final interactions with each of them to be figments of his imagination.

All he had to do was keep walking. Keep getting sunburnt and sweaty and wind-chapped. Then he could get home to his bed and Ned’s vintage Star Wars posters and May’s bad cooking and the goofy sketches MJ makes of him when he’s stressed. 

The wind. It seemed louder. 

“Mr. Stark, do you hear that?”

Stark didn’t even turn around, just kept walking. “Hear what, kiddo?”

“The wind. It’s louder. And choppier.”

Stark actually stopped this time. “The wind hasn’t changed. At least, I don’t think it has.”

Peter did a 360 spin where he was standing, searching for the source of the noise. He’d noticed an increase in his hearing range recently, an odd effect that probably came from whatever he’d been injected with. Those drugs were really something else. 

“I don’t see it yet, but I definitely hear it. Choppy air. Maybe an engine?” Not five seconds after the words left his mouth, Peter spotted a dark dot on the horizon. The object was approaching quickly and created more and more noise as it neared himself and Stark.“I think it’s a helicopter!”

Stark put a hand under the shirt tied around his head and over his eyes, squinting at the point in space where the sandy desert met cloudless blue sky. It was impossible to miss now; there was a helicopter out there. And it was flying right towards them.

“Start waving, Peter! This might be our ride home.”

Peter started raising his hands, but stopped about half way up. “Are we sure they’re on our side?” 

Tony, already flailing his hands around, gave a sad smile. “Let’s hope.” 

* * *

 

Rhodes hopped out of the helicopter and onto the sand along with Regis, Smith, and MacLeod. Regis stayed close by enough to provide help if it was needed, but far away enough that he wasn’t in the way. Very space conscious, he was. Always where he needed to be, even if Rhodes didn’t know where he wanted him. It was one of the reasons James liked him. 

Smith and MacLeod each approached one of the men.  Smith took the shorter one. MacLeod cautiously inched toward the one with what seemed to be a scarf or stretch of fabric tied around his head. 

“Oh my _god,_ it really took you guys long enough. I was supposed to be home ages ago. I’m leaving a 0 star review on Yelp. Worst service I’ve ever had.” 

Rhodes would recognize that voice anywhere. The snark, the gravelly undertone, the confidence and pride punctuating each word. A smile broke out on James’s face. 

“Tony.” He was hugging Tony before he could say anything else. Tony grunted when Rhodes squeezed him particularly hard, but raised his arms as best he could from beneath Rhodes and hugged him back. “Stark, you bastard. You beautiful bastard.” 

Tony chuckled. “Nice to see you, Rhodey. How’s life?” His voice sounded whispy. Like he hadn’t had a drink of water, or of anything, for that matter, for a very long time. His nose and tops of this cheeks were sunburned as hell, the skin an angry red and already blistering slightly. He must have tied the shirt around his head to keep the sun off of him. 

Rhodey didn’t notice it until he hugged him, but there was something sitting underneath Tony’s shirt. Rhodey reached up and tapped a finger to it. A metallic _ting_ rang out when his nail made contact. “What is this? Why’s it glowing?” 

Tony quickly grabbed Rhodey’s hand and shoved it away. It was hard to tell if he was smiling or grimacing. Sometimes, with Stark, the two looks were one and the same. “I’ll explain later. Right now we go home, Yeah? Oh! I’m an idiot. Where are my manners? Rhodey, this is Peter. Pattson.”

“Parker,” the man said quietly. “Peter Parker.”

Tony extended his right arm with a grunt, like the movement pained him, and dramatically swept it toward the other man. 

But now that Rhodey was paying attention, the other man wasn’t a man at all. Nowhere close. He looked maybe fifteen years old. Sixteen, tops. 

If Rhodey was being honest, his heart hurt looking at Peter. Peter’s dirty clothes hung loosely off of his frame. He’d obviously been underfed in recent weeks. His hair was shaggy and dirty, and there were little scrapes all over his face and arms liked he’d run through a glass door. 

Peter was doing his best to stand still and upright, but Rhodey didn’t fail to notice the slight slouch in his shoulders or how he was trying to not lean on his left leg. Poor kid was really in rough shape.

“Well, hop on in,” Rhodey said. “Let’s get of here. I figure you don’t want to be here any longer than you have to.”

Tony slapped Rhodey’s back. “Good man. C’mon, Pete. Let’s hop.” Despite Smith reaching toward Peter to help him to the chopper, Tony waved him off and supported Peter himself with an arm around his back.

“I’m fine Mr.Stark, really-“ 

“Cut the bullshit, kid. We’re not playing that game today.” 

“Alright.” 

The sight of Tony with a child was unsettling. Peter wasn’t helpless or in need of constant care by any means, but he was young enough for it to be weird that Tony was interacting well with him. There had been times in the past when Rhodey had seen Tony Stark with children. Needless to say, he’d acted, well...Like an idiot. That’s really the best way to put it. 

He either talked to the older ones like they were incapable of comprehending language, or treated the young ones like they could get by on their own. Rhodey had a distinct memory of Tony offering a sip of his scotch on the rocks to a seven year old at a charity gala. He was just unbelievably tactless when it came to being around anyone more than 20 years younger than him. 

But there was no sign of that tactlessness in the way he had his arm around Peter, the way Tony helped him into the helicopter so he didn’t have to put pressure on his bum leg. It was completely out of character in the best way possible. 

MacLeod and Smith checked over Peter and Tony’s seatbelts. Tony’s was adjusted perfectly. Peter’s wasn’t horrible, but was too tight and too loose in certain places. 

“I’m sorry,” Peter said quietly as Smith strapped him into his seat. “I’ve never flown before.” 

“It’s no problem, bud.” Smith finished tightening Peter’s seatbelt and gave him a firm pat on the arm. “Never flown in a helicopter?” 

“Never flown in anything. Never had a reason to. I’ve only left New York State a handful of times.” Peter nodded his thanks as Regis handed him and Tony headsets so they could communicate in the air. 

Rodriguez turned in his seat to inspect the cabin, then checked the readings on the console. “Clear for take-off, sir?” 

Rhodey rotated in his seat to check the status of his men and their new guests. Smith, MacLeod and Regis were situated. Tony was saying something to Peter, the microphone of his headset flipped up so their conversation could remain private. “Everyone clear back there?” 

There was a chorus of “Yes, sir” from Rhodey’s three men and surprisingly, Peter, and a thumbs-up from Tony. 

Rhodey lightly patted Rodriguez’s arm. “Clear. Back to base. Let’s get these guys home.” 

“Copy that, sir.” 

Once they were in the air and a reasonable distance away from Tony and Peter’s pick-up site, Rhodey thought it might be a good time to start warming up the two of them for interrogation later in the day. He knew Tony would likely be open enough to be useful, but Peter was another story. Rhodey had no doubt that he’d developed some major trust issues toward adults he didn’t know in recent days and wouldn’t start talking easily. 

Interrogation was the wrong word. Tony and Peter were victims, not criminals. But Stark would definitely need to explain how he managed to escape a terrorist encampment, with a child, no less. 

“So you’re from the City?” Rhodey asked into his headset. No one spoke for a moment, then Peter cleared his throat. 

“You’re talking to me, sir?” 

“You can call me Rhodes, Kid. Or Rhodey. Rhodes, Rhodey, I don’t care. But yes, I’m talking to you.” 

Another few seconds of silence. “Yeah. Queens.” 

“Very cool, very cool. I’ve got some cousins in Queens. I haven’t seen them in a while, but when I’d visit we used to always go get sandwiches from this awesome bodega down the road. Think it was called Delmar’s?” 

“I love Delmar’s! Man, his meatball subs are _incredible.”_ Peter sounded enthusiastic, which was a plus, but Rhodey mentally punched himself when he realized that food was the last thing he should be talking about. Peter probably hadn’t eaten well in ages. Bringing up his favorite sub shop back home would only make him hungry and homesick. The last thing Rhodey wanted to do was make him feel worse, because even though he’d been rescued, there were still a plethora of hoops to jump through before he’d be heading back to the states and seeing any of his loved ones. 

The chopper dipped a bit in the air due to an unexpected change in the wind. Rhodey heard something like metal crunching. 

“What the hell was _that?”_ he said aloud, looking around the nose of the helicopter for any visible damage. “Anyone else hear that? Smith, MacLeod, Regis. Any of you see anything hit us?” 

Smith coughed. “Uh, I don’t think it was a projectile, Colonel.” 

“What? What do you mean?” When Rhodey peered around the seat’s headrest to check on his men, the last thing he expected was to see Smith’s eyes as wide as tea saucers and Peter’s hand wrapped so tightly around the metal pole next to his seat that the metal had warped. 

“‘M sorry,” Peter said, his eyes almost as wide as Smith’s. “The turbulence caught me off guard.”

Tony squeezed Peter’s shoulder and smiled. “That’s alright, bud. It happens. How about you have some water and a nap, huh? I’m sure you’re exhausted after that lovely desert walk of ours. It might help pass the time.”

On queue, Peter let out a huge yawn and smacked his lips a little bit. “Yea, maybe.” It looked like Peter knew he wouldn’t be getting any sleep. He was likely just trying to please Stark.

Tony snapped his fingers a few times and looked at all of the military personnel in the helicopter in the eye for several seconds. “So? You guys got any water on this thing?” 

Regis silently pulled out his own canteen and handed it to Peter, who smiled gratefully and took several large gulps before passing it off to Tony. 

Rhodey made eye contact with Tony over the canteen. _Man, what the hell? What just happened?_

Tony tilted his lead to the side a little bit and blinked a few times. _Not with all of these people around. I’ll tell you later._

* * *

 

Raza didn’t know how long he’d been lying on the ground. All he knew was that he needed to get up. He could no longer stand listening to the pained moans of his comrades as they lay dying around him. 

Because that’s what they were doing. Dying.

Death wasn’t a foreign concept to Raza. He’d seen it, heard it, even brought it to others a few times. He’d never come this close to it himself, though. The fact that he was almost taken out by someone as filthy and narcissistic as Tony Stark made the incident infinitely more shameful.

As Raza pushed himself of the cave floor, he quickly glanced around at the havok Stark had wreaked. Several men were sprawled out on their stomachs and backs, most of them dead or on the way. Raza tried to not look at their mottled faces, but he knew they were burned beyond recognition. The smell of singed flesh was too strong to think otherwise.

Ho Yinsen lay limp and blue over a stack of rice sacks. He had no pulse, but the blood staining his shirt was still fresh. Stark and the Parker boy hadn’t been gone for long. They might still be within reach. 

Raza had been close to the fire. He knew he was injured; his right eye was already swelling shut and occasional jabs of pain shot up his cheek and toward his scalp. But when he dared to reach up and physically touch his face, his fingers simply grazed across a sea of rough, bubbly skin. He felt no pain until he reached the outer edges of the wound. 

He didn’t want to think about what that meant. Nerve damage. Possibly third-degree burns. 

Raza needed to think about how he was going to get Tony Stark and Peter Parker back before Obadiah Stane found out. Stane wasn’t the type of man that took blips in his plan in stride. He wanted everything done right the first time. 

Raza wasn’t necessarily _afraid_ of Stane. It was more of a begrudged respect; Obadiah was a pain in the ass and couldn’t be trusted for anything past a basic business transaction, but Raza had to respect his tenacity. When he wanted something done, he got it done, no expense spared. 

Obadiah paid Raza and his men a very large sum of money to “take care” of Tony and Peter. Money that Raza quite literally couldn’t afford to give back. It had already been spent on ammunition, fire power, trucks, anything and everything. Stane was expecting results from Peter and proof of death for Tony. Those results and that should-be corpse just escaped using a high-tech suit Stark shouldn’t have been able to make with the materials on hand. 

Raza stumbled his way through the caves, down the halls and hidden passages he’d gotten to know so well since becoming leader of this encampment. It was easy to see the path Tony and Peter had used to escape. Their footprints were bullet holes and scorch marks, their scent that of smoke and charbroiled flesh. Once Raza was outside he could see that Tony hadn’t managed to kill all of his men, though some looked like they would have preferred it over the state in which they were left. Death probably wasn’t Stark’s goal, anyways. He was flamboyant and showy to pull attention away from the child and from his escape. If everyone and everything was on fire, hardly anyone would be able to chase after him. Especially if he was airborne. 

“ _Find the son of a bitch!”_ Raza was yelling in the faces of anyone conscious enough to understand him. Each movement of his mouth pulled at his burned skin, but the pain only motivated him. “ _Find them both! Follow them!_ Go!” 

* * *

 

The second they stepped off the helicopter (or in Peter’s case, limped off,) Tony and Peter were whisked away to the base infirmary. Both himself and the kid were in rough shape and needed medical attention. Tony knew that. But separating from Peter after what they’d just been through back at the terrorist encampment was causing his heart to pound painfully behind his arc reactor. 

The frightened look in Peter’s eyes when a base doctor began leading him to a separate exam area was enough confirmation for Tony. He stopped the doctor with a hand on his shoulder just before he was out of reach. “Hey, doc, I know you’ve got work to do, but would you mind if the kid and I stuck together?” 

“I mean, I’ll have to separate you for a little bit while I do a preliminary evaluation, but after that I don’t see an issue.”

“Separate us how much?”

The doctor’s eyebrows rose a little bit. He somehow hadn’t caught onto the fact that the kid was overflowing with nerves, and Tony was actually trying to be a decent guy for once and calm him down. 

“Not for too long. Ten or fifteen minutes. I’m the only doc on base at the moment so you guys will have to take turns. Then you can see one another again.”

Peter still didn’t look particularly happy. He was picking at the skin around his nails, which Tony could see was dry and probably bleeding in some places. But Peter wasn’t going to actually tell the doc how uneasy he was feeling. He’d be compliant. It was sweet, but Tony hoped he was a little more passionate about important matters. He hated seeing such a brilliant mind so subdued simply because he thought that’s what adults wanted. “It’s okay, Mr. stark. I’ll see you in a minute.” His smile was weak, but it was there. The doctor deemed it good enough and walked Peter to a hallway off the hangar. 

* * *

 

“Raza! Here!” 

Raza and his men had been scouring the desert for hours, looking for signs of Tony or Peter. The escapees’ foodprints had likely been gone for ages, the sand blown around and smoothed over by the wind, so Raza was really just looking for physical objects they might have left behind. It was a longshot considering they left with only the clothes on their backs, but it was the only shot he had. 

The makeshift bandage on Raza’s face rubbed painfully against his wound. He needed medical treatment he knew his group didn’t have access to, and he was in no place to demand help from Obadiah. He’d have to just power through the pain and hope the burn healed itself. 

Besides, he was much better off than many of his men. Some wouldn’t make it through the night. Some would be in pain the rest of their lives. Stark had rendered a dozen of his men useless, set fire to his camp, never ended up building the Jericho missile, and ran off with Obadiah Stane’s several million dollar science experiment. 

Tony owed Raza more than just his suit. He owed him his life. 

Raza trudged through the desert wind over to where one of his men was pointing enthusiastically. 

 Pointing at a helm identical to the one from Tony’s suit.

“Find the rest!” Raza shouted over the breeze, the demand aimed at his entire search party. “Find it all! Dig for it, I don’t give a shit how long it takes! I want the whole damn suit! If we don’t find this thing, it’s _all_ of our asses on the line!” 

* * *

It took the doctor about 45 minutes to complete Peter’s exam. The wait was agonizing. Tony sat in a cheap plastic chair outside the exam room for the entirety of those 45 minutes, only half-ass protesting when Rhodey forced a bottle of water and a granola bar down his throat. 

Tony’s original reaction to the granola bar had been anything but enthusiastic. “Got anything a little more, I don’t know, tasteful? Filling? Not for toddlers on their preschool snack break?” 

Rhodey, sitting in another one of the sad little plastic chairs outside the exam room, knocked Tony gently with his elbow. “I don’t want to give you too much of anything until the doc clears you.” Rhodey’s eyes started at his head of shaggy hair and then lowered to the dirt on his face, then to the baggy tanktop and shorts Tony had been given by the terrorists a few weeks into his incarceration. “It’s obvious you haven’t been eating enough. Forcing too much on you will just make you sick.” 

“Fair point. But I would have preferred some fruit gummies, maybe a popsicle.” 

“Eat the damn granola bar.” 

“Sure thing, dad.” 

Tony ate the bar in silence and occasionally sipped his water, simply basking in the glory of air conditioning and having his friend beside him. There were times back in the cave when Stark thought he might never lay eyes on Rhodey, or anyone else he cared about, for that matter, ever again. It was hard to be positive when almost every day consisted of pain and noise and rock walls. But now that he was here, cold plastic under his ass and beige-painted drywall all around, he’d never been more thankful to be out of that place. 

“So Tony,” 

“So Rhodey,” 

Rhodey glared at Tony out of the corner of his eye, then aimed his eyes at a stock-photo painting of a meadow hanging on the wall across the hallway. “Peter. What’s his deal?” 

Rhodey was trying his best to be casual, but Tony could hear the curiosity lacing his words. He didn’t blame him for having questions. Tony just didn’t know how much he should or could share at the moment. 

“This an official U.S. Military inquiry? Or a conversation between friends?” 

Rhodey turned away from the meadow photo and toward Tony. His eyebrows were sipping toward his nose in the middle. “What do you want it to be?” 

“The latter.” 

Rhodey nodded. “Then we’re just friends talking. But I suggest you keep your volume level down. Wouldn’t want to disturb the neighbors.” 

“Right,” Tony took a moment to compose himself, trying to mentally gather a reasonable amount of knowledge of Peter’s time in the cave without gathering _too_ much. Rhodey didn’t need to know everything just yet. Hell, _Tony_ didn’t know everything yet. He would ask Peter about it someday. Whenever he was ready. 

“He’s not high profile, I don’t think. At least, he claims he isn’t. He doesn’t know how long he was there. I’m guessing a few weeks shorter than me and Y-“ Tony’s tongue fumbled trying to get Yinsen’s name out of his throat. “-shorter than me.” 

“You know why he was there?” 

“Testing, I think.”

“ _What?”_ Rhodey moved one chair closer to Tony. “You’re serious?” 

“Yeah. I think so.” 

“Well, what kind of testing?” 

“I don’t know. They brought him to me eventually, sick as hell. I think they gave him something serious. I only know what the kid told me, and he was out cold for a lot of it.” 

“Then how does he know what they were doing?” 

“He said they came in every once in a while and injected him with stuff. He doesn’t know what, or how often. I guess he was conscious for bits and pieces.” 

Rhodey leaned away from Tony out of surprise, and Tony couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. Rhodey didn’t make Tony uncomfortable, per say, but the last thing he wanted was someone in his personal space, and Rhodey had been close enough that Tony could feel his breath on his arm. It was making him anxious. 

“The incident in the helicopter. He bent the guardrail next to his seat with his bare hand.” 

“One of the effects we’ve noticed so far. Enhanced strength.” 

“ _How_ enhanced?” 

Tony was hesitant to respond. The boy was just through the door to Tony’s left, simply a wall between the two of them, and Tony was sitting in the hallway spilling all of his secrets. Talking to Rhodey about whatever was on his mind had always been easy for Tony. Peter’s condition had been a major topic of thought for the last several weeks, so it was nice sorting through it all with someone aside from 

Yinsen. But Tony couldn’t help but feel like Peter’s abilities weren’t his to share, no matter how close him and Rhodey were. “Don’t know, really. Haven’t tested it.” 

There was a look on Rhodey’s face that said he knew Tony was holding back, but the exam room door opened before he got a chance to say anything else. 

The doctor peeked his head through the opening. “Mr.Stark, would you mind jumping in here for a second?” 

Tony tilted his head. “Something wrong?” 

“Nothing major. Just need a second hand.” 

“Alright. Be back in a minute, Rhodes.” 

When Tony walked into the room, he did not expect to see Peter stuck to the wall. 

He wasn’t just leaning against it; it looked as if he’d been sitting on the exam table, shuffled backward, and just started walking up the wall. Peter’s front was aimed toward Tony and the doc, knees bent, hands to his sides and splayed flat against the plaster. His bare feet were flat as well, as if he were holding on with them and his hands alone. 

“Pete, kiddo? How the hell did you get up there?” 

“So you didn’t know this was possible?” The doctor questioned in an almost accusatory manor, like Tony should have just known that Peter could scale vertical services with no special equipment. 

“He...He had a needle,” Peter mumbled quietly. 

The doctor nodded and pointed to the needle and sample collection tube lying on a metal tray near the exam table. “I need a blood sample. Just to do a  routine workup; glucose, cholesterol, normal stuff.” 

“It’s not that bad, Peter. I’ve had it done loads of times, it’s just a pinch-“ 

“It  _is_ that bad!” Tony hadn’t expected the volume of Peter’s voice to rise so dramatically, so he was startled when the boy’s words were something close to a shout. “I don’t wanna go to sleep again. I won’t let them put me to sleep again. It was _dark,_ and my head always hurt, and I won’t do it. I _won’t.”_

Tony could have slapped himself upside the head. And the doctor, for that matter. It wasn’t the doc’s fault, really. He didn’t know Peter was being injected with things against his will for months. But he probably could have been a bit more careful. He at least should have been informed that Parker had been held against his will, and probably wouldn’t take kindly to being poked and prodded by a stranger. 

“That’s okay, Peter. You don’t have to.” Tony took a few steps toward the exam table. “We can figure samples out later.” 

The doctor put up a finger like he was about to speak, but the look on Tony’s face forced his hand back down. 

Peter’s head was tilted, eyes squinted like he was confused. “I don’t?” 

“No, you don’t. You can just come down from there,” _he can come down from the wall, oh my god, how is he up there, “_ and we can get all of this over with. Just let the doc check you over. Okay?” 

“No needles?” 

“No needles.” 

Tony turned to the doctor and raised his eyebrows. 

“No needles,” the doctor confirmed, but he didn’t look very happy about it. 

“Now just come down. Slowly, so you don’t hurt- _Jesus, Peter!”_

Peter used his hands and feet to push off the wall with lightning speed, landing on his feet before Tony and the doctor. He winced when his bad foot made contact with the floor. 

“So you don’t _hurt yourself,”_ Tony finished. 

The doctor stepped forward. “Peter, would it make you more comfortable if Mr.Stark stayed for the duration of your exam?” 

Peter looked over his shoulder, and Tony knew he was glaring at the silver tray that still held the unused needle. He nodded. 

“Alright, then. Please take a seat on that stool, Stark. You’ll be next.” 

* * *

 

To the doctor’s credit, he approached the arc reactor topic in a moderately casual manor. 

Peter, freshly done with his exam and sitting in the corner of the room with a boot and a pair of crutches leaned on the wall next to him (he’d sprained his ankle in the crash and the doc thought his foot might be fractured, but the base’s one x-ray machine was down, so they couldn’t be sure), watched as the doctor instructed Stark to take off his outershirt. Neither himself nor Tony had actually undressed for their exams. Doing so would have meant the other person had to leave the room, and Peter really didn’t feel like being alone with the doctor. He was a fine guy, but Peter didn’t exactly want one-on-one time with anyone in a lab coat. He figured he wouldn’t for a long time. 

With Mr.Stark’s overshirt off, the arc reactor was on full display, glowing a bright blue through the material of his sleeveless top. The doctor tapped his own chest where the reactor was in Tony’s. “That. Can I have the story behind that?” 

Tony explained the reactor’s insertion process as plainly as possible. Peter could tell he was uncomfortable talking about it and was glossing over most of the gruesome details, but the whole ordeal still sounded horrifying and painful and overall unpleasant.

The doctor had his hands steepled under his chin. “But _why_ do you have it? know _how_ the reactor is there now, and I sort of understand how it works, but _why?”_

Stark cleared his throat, glanced at Peter, then trained his eyes on a spot just above the doctor’s bald head. “I had a little run in with one of my bombs. Terrorists got a hold of some. I got too close. Whatever raggedy-ass docs they had back there couldn’t get all the shrapnel out.” Stark used his nail to tap the reactor. “This propels the shrapnel away from my heart.” 

The doctor looked like his head was about to explode. If the conversation topic wasn’t so heavy, Peter might have laughed. “And they expected this to be a long term solution? Seriously?” 

Mr.Stark laughed. “The reactor was my idea. Before this, I was working with a magnet and a car battery.” 

“Barbaric. Simply barbaric.” The doctor was off his stool now, digging through a cabinet in the back of the room. “I have the contact information for an excellent trauma surgeon back in the States, let me give you his information-“ 

“No thanks,” Stark said nonchalantly, gracefully sliding off the exam table and wiping non-existent dust from his hands. “I’ll pass for the time being.” 

The doctor looked taken aback at having his services rebuffed. “Are you sure? Having that thing _can’t_ be comfortable.” 

“Completely sure. Are you done looking over the kid? I think both of us are due for some rest.” 

Rest sounded incredible to Peter. That, along with a fried chicken dinner. Or pizza. Or lasagna. Anything but rice and beans. 

“Let me grab you a sling, Mr.Stark. Then I’ll let you go. You’ve managed to hurt your shoulder. It’s not dislocated, and it’s not swollen enough for anything to be fractured or broken. I’m thinking it’s a sprain.” 

“Makes no difference to me. Hand it over.”   
  
Peter was surprisingly swift on his crutches. He thought he’d be clumsy and top-heavy like he used to be when he’d tried balancing on playground beams as a child, but he had no issues keeping pace with Mr.Stark and the doctor. 

The doctor, who had yet to share his name with Peter or Tony, hadn’t stopped talking since they left the exam room. “I’ll be transferring all of this data to your primary care doctors back in the States. Neither of you are healthy enough to be given anything close to a bill of good health. You may need nutritional supplements. Peter, you still need to have that foot looked at more closely. Mr.Stark, I’d really recommend looking into surgery to remove the arc reactor. Having something so foreign inside the human body _can’t_ be good for you-“ 

“Thanks Doc. I’ll take that into account. Now can the boy and I _please_ go shower? We haven’t had a proper one of those in weeks.” 

“Months,” the doctor corrected without thinking. “Three, to be exact.” 

Peter knew he’d been gone for several months, if the length of Tony’s stay at the camp was any indication. He just hadn’t known how _many_ months. Hearing that he’d been gone for a fourth of a year wasn’t easy. How many days of school would he have to make up? How many days hanging out with friends had me missed? Movie nights with Aunt May? 

“Yeah.” Peter visibly swallowed. “A shower would be great.” 

Rhodey was waiting for Peter and Tony back in the hangar. He seemed much less stressed than he had during the helicopter flight. “Great news, boys. There’s a priority flight out of here tomorrow morning.” 

A contagious smile broke out on Tony’s face. Peter could feel the corners of his own mouth turning upward. 

_Home._

_Aunt May and Ned and MJ and Midtown and his apartment and his bed and Mr.Delmar and his MP3 player and hot showers and clean clothes and ice in his water and video games and the noisy upstairs neighbor who always sings show tunes and sitting on the fire escape at night and pretending to see stars behind the city lights._

_He gets to go home._

 


	9. IMPORTANT: NOT on hiatus!!

I’m so very sorry that this isn’t actually a new chapter, but I just wanted to let you all know that this story is NOT on hiatus! There’s an update coming, I swear! My senior year of high school and college applications have sort of taken over my life. Writing got pushed to the side. But things are definitely slowing down, and I’m going to get writing as soon as possible! I’m sorry I’ve made you wait so long. I just need a little bit more time and patience, that’s all. But there WILL be an update. 

 

Once again, sorry y’all. 

 

-J


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